Night of the Fae (Ana Martin series)

by Lyneal Jenkins

  Adam hesitantly reached up to touch my arms. He became my life raft in the sea that was trying to drown me and I gripped him as if my life depended on it. The pain racked through me and so did the sobs, the tears falling freely to soak us both.

  There was no way to tell how long we stayed like that, there was no time in the hell I was suffering, but eventually my mind managed to bury it, having suffered so much already, it protected itself from the pain of Gabriel’s sorrow.

  ‘Suraya?’ I was sure I already knew the answer, yet I needed to ask.

  ‘She is alive,’ he said to my surprise. ‘However, she may not survive.’

  Fresh tears rolled down my cheeks. I hated her for what she had done, but she was Gabriel’s daughter and I knew that he would never be able to heal from the loss if she died.

  ‘What happened Ana?’

  The words were stilted as I first started telling him, though they soon gained momentum. By the end my speech was a garbled mess that he most likely had trouble understanding. When I had finished I huddled into his hard chest. I had never been this close to him before, even with everything that had happened I could feel surprise for the way he smelt, it was like I was breathing in a summer’s day, the air and the sun trapped in his skin. It was peaceful.

  ‘I should have known something like this would happen.’ His voice was tense, but I couldn’t find the words to reassure him, none of us could have predicted the extent that Suraya would go to, to get rid of me.

  ‘How did you know?’ I asked. I had been so certain that I would die in the barn that my mind was still struggling with the turn of events.

  ‘Gabriel sensed your fear,’ he told me. ‘We flew here as fast as we could.’

  ‘Not by plane this time,’ I muttered wryly.

  Adam let out a surprise laugh, it was small and without much humour, yet echoed around the open space we sat in. ‘You will be alright,’ he told me. I didn’t think that it would ever be possible for me to be alright again. ‘We came as falcons,’ he continued. ‘It was faster than driving.’

  I knew I should feel some wonder at the image of them travelling across the skies, their great wings spread out in flight, but I couldn’t. Apart from the pain transmitted from Gabriel I felt nothing, as if I had actually died in the barn and now was only a walking zombie.

  ‘Is he with her?’ Although I knew it was selfish, I wanted him to be with me, not her. I needed to be in his arms, yet at the same time I was also terrified of how he would react to me. Adam nodded. ‘The Fae?’ I asked.

  ‘Eris is finishing them up now.’

  The image of the Fae surrounding me flashed before my eyes and I shuddered violently. I wasn’t feeling so strong and calm anymore.

  I tried to wipe the tears from my face, before realising that I was only transferring more blood to my cheeks. I let my hands drop to my lap. Who cared what I looked like.

  ‘You’re not as tough as you like people to think,’ I said as a way to distract myself from Gabriel’s anguish.

  ‘Why would you say that?’ He sat up on the fallen tree, staring off into the woods.

  ‘Well, you don’t hate me as much as you like to pretend.’

  ‘I beg your pardon,’ he said, turning to me.

  A high pitched scream came from close by and I shuddered once more. ‘Well?’ I prompted.

  ‘Well what?’

  ‘You don’t hate me anymore?’

  ‘Does it matter?’ he answered stiffly.

  ‘No, but I would still like to know.’

  I tried to get a sense of what he was feeling, but he had once again become a vault, leaving me with only guess work. Though when I focused, I realised that there was something simmering at the edge, a glimmer of anger that wasn’t betrayed by his features.

  ‘I felt your worry,’ I reminded him when he didn’t respond.

  ‘I was concerned for all of us.’

  I chuckled darkly. ‘Somehow I don’t believe that.’ There was no way that he would have left Eris to deal with the Fae on her own if he thought for one minute that she wouldn’t be fine. Also, my ability to read people had improved somewhat and I had been able to tell that his worry had been aimed in my direction.

  ‘Your beliefs are irrelevant,’ he said stonily as he turned to scrutinise the woods once more.

  ‘Ouch,’ I replied.

  ‘What do you want me to say, Ana?’ He turned to stare at me with an intensity that in the past, would have pinned me to the spot.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I sighed. ‘I’m just making conversation.’

  The silence between us was deep, though broken by the remaining screams of the Fae as Eris hunted them. The sound should have disturbed me, but it didn’t. When a high pitched yelp echoed out into the night, I wondered if it was the Fae who had broken my back. When another scream was cut off at its highest pitch, I thought of the Fae who had sliced his blade along my thigh. Each thought brought with it a sense of satisfaction that chilled me, not because the Fae were dying, but because I could feel such pleasure at their demise.

  ‘I do not hate you,’ Adam said finally, disturbing my thoughts.

  ‘That’s good,’ I replied.

  ‘It does not mean I trust you,’ he added.

  ‘I would expect nothing else.’

  I looked down at my torn and bloodied clothes and concluded that I was in dire need of a shower. I had a momentary flare of intense anger upon seeing the torn holes in my favourite pair of jeans, before smiling wryly to myself as I realised how stupid and irrational it was to be annoyed about clothes when so much had happened.

  The barn was less than twenty metres away and I could sense that Gabriel was still inside. I desperately wanted to go to him, but it took several minutes of battling with myself, before I found the strength to stand. I stumbled forwards a couple of steps and would have fallen if Adam hadn’t gripped hold of my arm.

  ‘I’m fine,’ I told him once I was steady.

  As I walked towards the barn, my feet became heavier. The pull to be with Gabriel was strong, but there was a cold, dark anger brewing in him that threatened to halt me. When I reached the rotten door, I hesitated. Maybe it would be best to wait for him to come to me; after all, as much as I hated his daughter, he needed to be with her right now.

  Before I could make a decision, I sensed him approaching. I stepped back in order to avoid the door, but didn’t manage it in time. The wooden panel flung open so hard that it ripped from its hinges. The corner of the door caught my shoulder as it was thrown forward and I stumbled backwards. Before I could fall to the ground, Gabriel grabbed the front of my top and brought me towards him.

  ‘YOU!’ he bellowed. His face was inches from mine, and I nearly gagged on the intensity of his rage. ‘Because of you, my daughter may die.’

  My first attempt of speaking failed miserably as the words stuck in my throat. Gabriel lifted me by my arms and shook me so hard that my brain spun within my skull.

  ‘Get off!’ I screamed.

  His fingers dug painfully into my muscles and I cried. Someone had once told me that love and hate were two sides of the same coin. I had never understood how that was possible, until now. It was as if all the love that Gabriel had felt for me had been twisted into a snarly rage. Only hours before he had held me in his arms, telling me how he loved me more than life itself, now I was in no doubt that he wanted to kill me. He released my left arm and raised his hand up, ready to strike. I had survived Suraya, and had even managed to live through the Fae, but now I was going to die at the hands of the man I loved.

  Everything had gone so wrong, and I could only stare into Gabriel’s eyes, the eyes of a stranger. They were no longer the electric blue I had come to love; they had darkened to the colour of the midnight sky and blazed with a fire from within. I couldn’t see that. I couldn’t watch yet another person I loved attack me when I was defenceless. My head reeled with the change in him, and I closed my eyes in anticipation of the pain that was sure to come.
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  ‘Stop this,’ Adam said calmly. I opened my eyes to see that he had hold of Gabriel’s raised arm. ‘Gabe, go back to Suraya.’

  Gabriel glared at me with his lip curled and his body shaking, before letting me drop to the ground. There was no love or regret as he watched me scramble away from him and I was sure that he would attack anyway. He glanced towards Adam, who stood watching and ready, before stalking back into the barn. Adam reached his hand out to help me, but I ignored it and did my best to contain my groan as I stood up.

  ‘I want to go home now,’ I told him.

  He studied me for a moment before nodding and leading me along the road towards the car. My brain had reached its capacity for the day and I needed to be in the safe confines of my house.

  We passed the bodies of the Fae killed by my own hand. There were eight in total, more than I would have predicted I could have taken down. I paused by the Fae I had first met in the park. His mouth was open in a final snarl, revealing the sharpened teeth that could tear easily through flesh. There was something else, something different that I couldn’t quite put my finger on.

  ‘They become visible to humans in death,’ Adam said, startling me. I couldn’t move away. Another Fae, a female, tore at my gaze, dragging my attention to her small body. She lay on her side, with her knees tucked into her stomach and her fists tucked gently under her chin. Her red hair trailed over her face, framing long, thick eye lashes that rested against her skin. Her lips slightly parted, hiding the teeth that I feared so much. The essence of the Fae had gone, revealing the child beneath, a child once stolen from her bed, once loved by a family.

  I managed to turn away from the bodies before a desperate sob forced its way from my chest. I barely had time to make it to the twisted bush that lined the road before the contents of my stomach forced their way from my body. I choked, only briefly, but enough to cause a moment of panic when air couldn’t make its way to my lungs.

  ‘I can’t do this,’ I stammered as I straightened myself up. I turned to where Adam was stood waiting. ‘I can’t do this. I can’t be this person. This isn’t right, it just isn’t right.’ I pressed my shaking hands to my lips. ‘How can you live like this?’ I demanded. ‘How can you do this? They are just children, just poor little children.’ My throat thickened and tears flooded my cheeks.

  Adam gripped my wrists to pull my hands from my face. ‘They are not children. They may look like that now, but many of them are thousands of years old and have committed many atrocities. You would be wise to remember that.’

  The breath wheezed from my lungs in fast, forceful gasps. My head vibrated with all the information waiting to be processed and for the first time in years, I really thought that I might just go crazy after all.

  ‘I can’t do this,’ I shouted, snatching my arms from his grip. My head began to swim and I took several deep breaths in order to try and calm the rising storm, for if I didn’t, it would consume me. ‘It’s all too much,’ I cried. ‘Everything that’s happened, it’s all too much. You, the Fae, Lexi, Siis that talk to other Siis in their minds, it’s all too much.’

  ‘What do you mean Siis talking in their minds?’ Adam gripped the top of my arms, digging his fingers into my flesh until it hurt.

  ‘Get off me!’ I shouted as I yanked myself free from his grip. ‘You have no right to touch me. None of you do. And I’m sick to death with you all thinking that you can control my actions.’

  His eyes flashed for a moment, before he forced himself to relax and take a step back from me.

  ‘This could be important,’ he said calmly.

  ‘Suraya.’ I breathed deeply to try and curb my anger. ‘She tilted her head and then said someone called Morton was coming.’

  The sight of the lifeless Fae caught my eyes again, their petite bodies more lifelike in death than they had been in life. I couldn’t escape the reality. I was a killer.

  ‘They’re just little kids,’ I moaned into my hands.

  ‘I understand how difficult this must be,’ Adam said softly.

  ‘You have no idea what I’m feeling.’ I turned away from him, desperate to get away. ‘I’m not doing this anymore,’ I shouted over my shoulder as I headed towards the car. ‘I have had enough of your crazy world. I have had enough of being in danger. I have had enough of all of you. I have just had enough and I want you to stay away from me.’

  Adam followed, causing a spark of rage in me, so intense, that I thought I might explode.

  ‘You believe that you can just walk away?’ The light amusement threaded through his tone only flamed the rage further.

  ‘Just you watch me.’ I increased my pace further, until I was nearly running, only to groan loudly upon seeing the raised bonnet of the car. ‘Just fix the car,’ I demanded, ignoring his amused smile.

  Even the sight of the bonnet becoming liquid metal and smoothing down as if it had never happened, couldn’t reduce the anger that was brewing within. Up until now, I had taken everything in my stride, dealing with every problem as it arose. But now it was as if I had leapt outside of my own body and for the first time was able to have a really good look at myself. I could see everything that had happened as a whole, and I didn’t like it one bit.

  Once he had finished, I started the car. The engine roared into life as I pressed down too heavily on the accelerator and I grabbed the handle to slam the door. To my annoyance, Adam gripped the side, stopping me.

  ‘It does not work that way,’ he said, bending down to peer at me. ‘You cannot just decide to abandon this life.’

  ‘Watch me,’ I retorted, tugging on the door. When I couldn’t budge it, I leant back in the seat and crossed my arms. It was almost a minute before he finally released the door with a loud sigh.

  ‘You need to take this,’ he said holding out a sheathed blade.

  ‘I don’t want it,’ I barked. He tossed the dagger onto the passenger seat and hunkered down so that he was at eye level. The amusement had gone, and his dark stare demanded my attention, robbing me of all protests.

  ‘Whether you like it or not, your life has changed. The sooner you accept this, the more likely you are to survive.’ He stood without waiting for a response and closed the door before striding back towards the barn.

  ‘To hell with that,’ I muttered. As I turned the car around to head home, I had to consider the possibility that he was right. Maybe this was my life now. I shuddered at the thought, before forcing it into the back of my mind. I couldn’t accept that.

  As the car bounced along the track, groaning with the pressure I was putting it under, I pushed against the image of the Fae, forcing it into the back of my mind. After a time, I managed it and focused my attention to the task of driving. When the voice in my mind piped up, warning me that there would be consequences for the day, I ignored it. Right now, I couldn’t deal with that. Right now, I needed to get home, have a long shower and sleep. It wasn’t the time to worry about tomorrow. The day would come as it always did and I would deal with the problems then.

  THE END

  Dear reader.

  Thank you for taking the time to read Night of the Fae, I hope you have enjoyed it as much as I have.

  Night of the Fae is the first book in the Ana Martin series. Throughout the remaining books, Ana becomes deeply involved in the world of the Siis, meeting more previously unknown races along the way. She faces many emotional and physical challenges, and there are times that her sanity is in question forcing her to change in ways she could never have predicted.

  Please leave a comment on the Ana Martin Facebook page, found at the link below. https://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Ana-Martin-series/337614816313005

  Kind regards

  Lyneal Jenkins

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