Binding Curse: Dark Fae Hollow 4 (Dark Fae Hollows)

by T. F. Walsh

  Shadows danced beneath Axel’s eyes, but it didn’t conceal his eyes fixed on my bust. Sure, I was a healthy C cup, and that drew a guy’s attention, but seeing Axel study me had a tingle swirling in the pit of my gut. Any other time and I might have more than sized him up. He was a hunk. Damn, his strong jaw and parted lips had me panting.

  “Enjoying yourself?” I tightened the sleeves around me, which hurt my case as it lifted my cleavage. Flirting while in escape mode. Great decision, Luna.

  “Sure.” Without another word, he turned and continued along the tunnel, narrow enough for only two people. His head brushed the ceiling in places, a few inches shy of others.

  “So, talk,” I said. “Tell me everything about the human killings.”

  “Not here. Focus on moving faster. It’s a long walk.” His voice quickened as if he’d perfected how to change the subject and push someone away. But he had a point.

  “How long is long?” I asked, picking up my speed. The soil was compacted, well worn. This place wasn’t well ventilated either as I’d already sweated a river.

  After walking for close to an hour, Axel led me into a room, another cavern with the space also carved out of the ground. Nearby, a discarded boot lay on its side. Was that blood on the sole? Channels shot outward in every direction, each darker than the next.

  “Which way?” I trailed Axel’s light across the walls. Wooden plaques had been carefully placed above each entrance with white numbers painted on them. Six in total.

  Axel chose the fourth one. “Come on, hurry.” He took long strides, and I chased after him. “Where do the other numbers go?” If I had my comm, I’d have taken photos for a later investigation. I could use the information as leverage to soften the punishment coming my way from the PPD. No doubt about it, the day would come.

  Axel quit walking, and I bumped into his wall of muscle. He glanced over his shoulder and whispered, “Someone’s ahead. Don’t make eye contact and no interaction.”

  My mouth opened with questions, but Axel shook his head. Who else shared the space with us? PPD knew human gangs had formed in the Outlands. Each of them worked for different causes—hating fae, blaming fae for their predicament, stealing resources, or selling fae blood, but they all had one thing in common—they claimed to own sections of the Outlands. Whoever lived in those areas paid to keep their homes. So perhaps the burrows came under various jurisdictions.

  We were off again, down the narrowing passage. Axel blocked most of the space. I itched to see who approached.

  A male voice found us, his words undecipherable. I rested a hand on the hilt of one knife. Against all my better judgment, I stayed behind Axel and tracked the sound of his boots. This better not be a mistake.

  Perspiration tickled on its way down my spine. I wiped my upper lip, hating that I drowned in my sweat, not to mention the stink of something fetid in the stale air.

  Illumination bounced into view from the curve in the burrow up ahead, along with two figures. My muscles twitched. I reminded myself this was unknown territory. Trusting Axel was the smart move. Then why did my gut churn?

  By the time the two strangers reached us, my adrenaline had me clenching my fists. Ready for whatever.

  “Axel? Ty che, suka, o'khuel blya.” Hell, the newcomer with an eyepatch swore like a sailor. All he was missing was a parrot on his shoulder. “Zak’s still waiting to get paid.”

  Zak wasn’t the only one. I was waiting… waiting to get out of here… waiting for a response from Axel that was not forthcoming. Axel’s posture stiffened. What exactly was he paying for?

  My instincts screamed this would turn bloody, and I called to my inner power. Sure, I wasn’t fully charged yet, but a zap might help us bypass these gorillas.

  “I got it under control. Got to go.”

  When Axel moved, to my surprise, Eyepatch shifted aside so he could pass. With my head low, I followed him staying as near as possible.

  Except, the guy stepped closer to me, snorting in my face. Yeah, I should have backed down, but a raging fire burned in my chest. I raised my head and blurted, “Keep staring, and I’ll take your other eye.”

  “She speaks.” His flashlight blinded me. He lowered the beam to my body.

  Before I could respond, he seized my neck with one hand and slammed me back against the wall with the other. His vodka-infused words spat in my face. “Fae PPD? I always knew you were a pussy, Axel, but selling our kind to these scum, that’s a new low for you. Это пиздец.”

  This was fucked up, and panic snowballed in my chest. I pushed against the guy’s forearm as he blocked my windpipe with a death grip.

  Axel was at my side, his punch flying across the dude’s head. But our opponent didn’t even flinch. He shook his head and tightened his fingers around my neck. My lungs squeezed for air. I kicked him and clawed his arm.

  The second human, a biker with a long beard, lunged onto Axel’s back, both of them reeling into a wall.

  Stars dotted the edges of my blurry vision. My brain was on fire. I drew on my last traces of energy. The buzz of electricity skipped the tips of my fingers, and I thrust them into the attacker’s neck.

  Eyepatch flinched sideways, and I dropped to my feet.

  “C…cу́ка.” He convulsed and fell over.

  Served him right for calling me a bitch.

  Nearby, Axel rolled around with the biker, the dull thud of each other’s hits resonating in the narrow passage.

  The idiot I zapped reached for something on his belt. I didn’t hesitate and raised a hand, unleashing the last threads of current coursing in my body. The blinding bolt struck him square in the chest, but I stumbled into a wall, exhaustion overtaking me.

  Wide eyed, Eyepatch curled in on himself, drooling, shaking.

  “Enjoy your night, asswipe.” I pushed myself up, needing to move. This wasn’t the place to take a nap. I sidestepped Eyepatch, well aware that he’d survive. Brutes like him needed to be put into their places.

  Axel stared down at his guy.

  “So, you going to be much longer?” I asked. “I’m ready to leave.”

  He twisted to face me. Blood streaked across his brow. Coupled with his busted lip from earlier, he was the poster boy for a fight club.

  His gaze swept to the second gorilla, knocked out. “You can handle yourself. Good to know.” Without another word, Axel laid a kick into his opponent’s ribs.

  When new voices came from an area of the tunnel we’d already traveled, Axel charged. His flashlight bobbed across the walls.

  I staggered after him. My legs were dead weight, but nothing would stop me at that point… too many unanswered questions… too much to lose if we failed. If these humans were the welcoming party for faes in the Outlands, no wonder most of them never ventured from the safety of the city.

  Chapter 10

  Axel climbed up the metal ladder secured to the tunnel wall with me right on his heels. The moment he pushed open the trap door, a flood of air rushed us, cooling me. Over my shoulder, darkness shrouded the underground passage. I expected the guy I’d beaten to jump out of the blackness, brandishing a knife, to slice me. The jitters swarmed my legs, and I hurried outside. But where were we?

  “This way.” Axel’s words floated on the air as he marched toward the back of a rundown house missing a roof. A line of homes stretched outward from our position. The fence encasing this property lay on its side. Not a speck of light came from any of the abodes. But behind us, open land stretched for miles.

  “Is this where your contact lives?” I asked. Axel had said he knew someone who might know about vulsines, yet this place appeared barren.

  Axel slipped between buildings and vanished. By the time I caught him, we stood on a street dotted with dilapidated one-story houses. Abandoned towns were a common sight outside Moscow. Happened after the Great War where faes and humans killed each other without mercy.

  “This is Zhukovoka. Just another dead zone,” Axel said, walking down the stre
et, hands in his pockets. “I used to have a buddy who lived here.” His voice was low, with a lingering trace of frailty.

  I could relate. Many in Moscow had lost a friend, family member, or neighbor. Every movement in my peripheral vision had me flinching. Shadows appeared behind parked cars at the curb. Even the skeleton shrubs in front yards swaying in the breeze freaked me out.

  “Listen,” Axel said. “I appreciate you risking your job and life for me. Few would do that.” He shrugged. “You’re different and a welcome change, but you’ve freed me.”

  Not sure the guy thanked people a lot, but I’d take it. “No prob. But this is more than me saving your skin. Vulsines are targeting you. Did anything happen to you recently? Have you met someone who can harness magic?” I hadn’t meant to interrogate him, but shit happens and habits are hard to break.

  At first, Axel didn’t answer but kept walking, his focus on the long road ahead. I readied to poke him for a response, when he said, “The killings in the Outlands started two weeks ago. Human bodies everywhere. People blamed gangs since the victims were stabbed.” He combed his fingers through shoulder-length hair. “But the last few days, there’s been a heaviness in the air as if a storm lingered, threatening to morph into a tornado kind of danger. I stayed indoors, waiting. But those faes in the woods trying to kill me had never happened before. That was fucked up.”

  “They were vulsines. Not faes.” Some faes had chosen to live in the Outlands… not many, but it wasn’t unheard of, except the bastards we’d encountered were vulsines.

  He threw me a dark grimace. “Not necessarily.”

  “Really? After what we’ve seen tonight, you still think faes were responsible?”

  He released a long exhale and stopped in the middle of the street, facing me. Flickering light from shadows gathered across his face. “I’m not discounting any possibility. Vulsines would screw with humans and faes until we’re extinct. But faes have never been shy about hunting us down and kidnapping whomever they thought was their binding partner.”

  I’d heard of the practice all too often, and it sickened me. But desperation and fear might make anyone do crazy things. “I hate to break it to you,” I said, “but it’s impossible to discover your binding partner.”

  He shrugged. “If you say so.”

  Axel walked faster, his body darkening the farther he traveled. Strong shoulders, tapering down to a waist where his jeans hung low on his hips. The way the guy strolled should be illegal.

  Yep, I’d gone batty because it was crystal clear Axel wasn’t interested in me, considering I was a fae.

  I rushed after him, trying to keep up. “The rumors about humans claiming to detect someone’s binding partner are bullshit. Don’t tell me you actually believe the gossip?”

  “Not everything is black and white.”

  I slapped his arm but regretted my action at once.

  Axel chuckled, his laughter loud and piercing. We kept our pace, and before long we’d left the town. In the distance stood a single, white building with a golden onion dome on top of one tower sticking up from the roof. The humans called it a church, a place to pray and ask for blessings and protection. I never understood why they couldn’t do that from anywhere. The all-powerful princess wasn’t contained by walls. She was inside us and everything in the world.

  When Axel stepped off the curb and headed closer to the building, curiosity burned a hole through my chest. “A church?”

  “You got an aversion to them?”

  Was he mocking me?

  “Thought most burned down during the war.”

  “If you left the confines of your city, you might discover new things.” Sarcasm dripped from his words. After a crappy day, I had zero intention of letting him bait me into an argument. Whatever. Faes and humans didn’t get along; what else was new?

  I marched past him up the stone steps to an arched doorway. “You going to babble or go chat with your contact who knows about vulsines?”

  The edges of his mouth curled upward. Yeah, it should have pissed me off, but the mischief behind his gaze killed me. He distracted me, put sexy thoughts into my mind. Well, let me say, if we were anywhere else, I wouldn’t hesitate to make a move. I’d always found the human male intriguing… their fiery nature, quick to anger, dealing with most situations by fighting. Primal and raw.

  I glanced up at Axel, hair fluttering, his stubble screaming ruggedness. My attention dipped to his chest, the V of his torso. Damn, what was wrong with me?

  I knocked.

  Footfalls sounded from inside the church, heavy and quick. A hissing also came from near my boots. A cockroach as big as my thumb wriggled out from a gap beneath the door and scurried toward my feet. I recoiled. The insect stopped and seemed to sniff my shoe, or whatever the disgusting thing did. If there was something I detested as much as vulsines, it has to be these bastards.

  The door groaned open. From the dimly lit room emerged a bear of a human dressed only in jeans halfway up his shins. With monster insects crawling around, I wouldn’t be walking barefoot.

  “Yeah?” he barked his greeting and ran a hand down his furry chest. He stood massive… taller and stronger than Axel, which was a mission in itself. A triangle tattoo sat on the bridge of his nose. He was a dominie.

  I’d heard of these guys… prophetic. They converted anyone they came across into believing a human god would come to our rescue. Not Princess Kutia.

  PPD sources painted them as aggressive and relentless. The darker rumors made them out to be mercenaries. Talk about contradicting themselves with good faith. Then again, why would they need such massive, beefy guys greeting guests? So, what was Axel’s involvement with them?

  “Here to see Priest. Got a confession to make.” Axel didn’t twitch or react to the guy’s gazing scrutiny. Maybe it was a secret code, but I wasn’t taking any chances. My hand eased to my belt, my fingers running across the smooth surface of the hilt of my blade.

  Hairy guy didn’t budge, but eyed me, his gaze dipping to my neck, my fae marking.

  “You got a problem?” I asked.

  “Don’t see your kind here often. Alive anyway.” He waved us in.

  Axel stepped inside, and when I fell into step, a crunch came beneath my boot. I lifted my leg to find the cockroach flattened, half sticking to my sole. Wonderful. Bug guts. I cringed and wiped my boot on a step before heading inside.

  We passed through a small foyer, drenched in darkness, and entered the main cathedral. Instead of the pews I’d seen in photos, the space had been gutted. Paintings of saints on the ceilings had faded or completely vanished. At the back of the room stood a gold-painted iconostasis: an icon stand, ten feet tall sporting three doors. I’d seen these before, and the middle one led to the altar it shielded. After the huge fire that nearly wiped Russia off the world map, all that remained were a fraction of the buildings from the old days. Most were rundown and no one maintained them.

  People were lying on the floor, covered in blankets. Several young children with dirty cheeks and clothes sat, eying me. I offered them a smile, but no response. In the next room, I spotted a spiral staircase. Upstairs was a corridor, extending on either side. The small lantern in the corner threw shadows across the landing.

  “Wait here,” hairy guy said and went inside a room.

  “So you know this priest person?” I asked.

  Axel locked his arms tight over his chest.

  “Yeah, a friend of mine used to attend mass. They do more than preach here.”

  My mouth opened but no words formed. He’d lost a close friend, and perhaps this location held memories for him. I understood. The Kutia Park was that for me. My sister loved the location and learned to ride her bike there. One day, we’d found an abandoned kitten and adopted it, but later it ran away. We returned daily for two months, hoping to track down the cat, but never did. It took me just as long to console Nyx.

  The park held loss and grief for me… my failure to protect my sister. I swall
owed past the boulder wedged in my throat, refusing to go there. Instead, I studied the wooden walls barren of artifacts, photos, anything. Yet the simplicity of it radiated a calmness.

  A cockroach scaled the wall and vanished into a crack. Damn, the things were everywhere. Who knew how many bred beneath the building.

  When the door opened, Axel didn’t wait but walked straight in, so I tracked after him. Incense permeated the air, faint and woodsy. Tiny triangles hung from the ceiling; there had to be close to fifty, all of various colors but high enough we didn’t hit our heads. No paintings in this room. It remained bare with white walls.

  In the center stood a thin man, dressed in a black gown reaching his ankles. No shoes. Thinning gray hair coated his head. In one hand, he held beads. When he caught sight of Axel, his eyes lit up.

  “Axel, it’s good to see you after so long.” Priest threw his arms around Axel. “Have you been following the right path?”

  Axel broke the embrace and straightened his posture. “We need your help.”

  Priest caught sight of the swirling mark along the side of my neck. He eyed my waist, then down my legs and back up. His eyes narrowed. “Boy, this better be life-threatening. I don’t accept the tainted into the house of God.”

  I sighed as a flash of annoyance funneled through me. Did every human detest faes? At least in the city, we tried to keep an open mind, teach people about acceptance and diversity. The message apparently hadn’t reached the Outlands.

  “Look,” I began, “I’m not here as an officer, but I’m assisting Axel. I would have thought a man of cloth like yourself ought to understand the need to accept different races.”

  He huffed and waved at me in a hushing gesture. I gritted my teeth and stepped closer, but Axel crossed an arm over my stomach. “Don’t,” he said.