“Stick together, then,” Noah says, not so much an order as a confirmation that they would follow normal Guard procedures for an unknown danger. Cole nods, and they go inside, Noah’s eyes casting left and right as he tries to read the reflections.
The problem, he knows, is that unlike human mirrors, the mirrors in a Fae maze may or may not be accurate reflections. In addition to clear fields that will stop his progress in one direction or another, shifting if he makes a mistake to another random point around him, sometimes, a mirror will reflect what isn’t there around the corner. The clues as to the right path are so subtle that they challenge even Fae senses, and it isn’t uncommon for young Fae to get lost for an hour or more in a maze.
The building is filled with musical laughter, Eve sounding like she’s having a blast. “Whoo! What was that?” she says with a giggle. “Hey, Cole, I can see you!”
“Probably not me,” Cole calls back, glancing over at Noah. “What else can you see?”
“Tyler’s butt!” Eve teases. “Looking good, Ty, baby!”
Ty, baby?
On your guard.
They make their way slowly through the maze, Noah depending on his other senses more than his eyes to help guide him. The maze is complex, far longer and more difficult than what someone would think possible in such a confined space. But Noah knows that with enchantments, they could be walking in magical circles and barely know it.
Occasionally, Noah and Cole can see Eve, or Tyler and Jacob, in the reflections around them. Noah’s reassured when he sees Tyler and Jacob sticking together. They’re also on their guard even though so far, the maze hasn’t unleashed any nasty surprises on them.
“Princess?” Jacob calls out, sounding like he’s only a few feet away even though the mirrors say he’s nowhere nearby. “You doing okay?”
“I’m having a blast,” Eve says, her voice low and starting to sound almost dangerous. “I think I’m going to play tag with you boys in here. What do you say? If I catch you, I get to blow you.”
“Eve, come on!” Tyler calls, obviously distressed. “That’s just too far.”
“What’s wrong, Tyler?” Eve taunts gleefully. “Afraid you might not be able to perform under public pressure?”
Noah can feel the waves of distress coming from Tyler, who despite his highly romantic soul is also intensely private about what they do as a group. They’d talked about it, and that first time when the four of them held Eve down and pleasured her was one of first times he’d ever done anything in a group setting, and the only reason he was able to perform at all was because it was with his brothers and he was already falling for Eve.
Calm yourself, Tyler. Whatever is going on with Eve, this isn’t our Princess, Noah sends him. Focus and we can find her. Only then can we help her.
Tyler’s response is wordless but understanding, and they continue. Out of the corners of his eyes, Noah can see flashes of Eve, but before he can see her fully, she seems to disappear. But in those flashes, he senses a change in her body language and in the way she moves.
It feels like we’re being stalked.
I agree, Cole replies. Almost like—
Before Cole can complete his thought, he whirls, his right hand flashing up and grabbing something. Without pausing, he continues with his spin, thrusting his hip out and whipping something over his shoulder. It’s so fast that it’s not until Eve smashes into the ground back-first that Noah realizes what’s happened, and it’s not until a heartbeat later that he sees the glowing silver dagger in her left hand.
“It feels like we’re being hunted,” Cole says, twisting Eve’s wrist and making her release the dagger. He keeps turning, forcing her onto her stomach and wrenching her hand up and between her shoulder blades. He kneels on her lower back, pinning her to the ground while maintaining full control of the situation. “Now . . . who are you, and what have you done with Eve?”
Chapter 26
Eve
Kaelen’s face tightens into a rage that I think I’ve never seen possible before, turning his ethereally handsome face truly, deeply ugly, and his eyes darken, almost going black and shadowed. The magic crackles between his fingers as I climb to my feet, not eager to see the results of this anger.
“Kaelen—”
Kaelen’s hands clench, and he turns, flinging lightning toward the entrance of the chamber. The bolts wrap themselves into the rock, flickering and breaking the illusion of the chamber for a few seconds before the magic takes hold again and the world looks transparent again.
“You lied to me,” he rasps, looking over his shoulder at me.
“I never lied. I was tired . . . I am tired. And I never promised you I was going to only come here with you.”
“I commanded you to remain!” Kaelen growls, turning back toward me but at least not threatening me with magic lightning any longer. “You were to obey—”
“I’m not one of your subjects,” I interrupt icily. “You make me your ward against my will, you keep me from the men I love, you keep me locked up in a tower room like something out of a royal prisoner story, and you threaten me with magic. But you don’t command me at all!”
Kaelen swallows, his eyes tightening as I continue to berate him, and his hand tightens into a fist. But I don’t care. Lay in that two hundred pounds of muscle into a punch, and I’ll still put you on your ass.
“What’re you gonna do, Kaelen?” I ask, raising my own hands. My restraints are off, and if he wants to throw down, I can throw down. My raw power against his centuries of skill. Not a fight that I want to have, but not one I’m going to back away from either. “I’m not your subject, but I don’t want to be your enemy either. We don’t have to do this.”
Kaelen, for the first time, realizes that I’m not bound by any restraints, and he takes a deep breath, relaxing his hands by sheer force of will. “You’re right . . . and wrong. We do have to do this. We need to go back into the Moonstone.”
“Why do you think I’m here?” I ask wryly. “I didn’t come to work on my tan. Wrong time of day. So, what brought you back?”
Kaelen purses his lips, then chuckles slightly. “Okay. I was doing some reading in my study, trying to find a pressure point.”
“Pressure point?” I ask before I realize what he means. “You think you’ve found the Dark Rider.”
Kaelen nods. “I thought about all the destruction we saw today. The devastation, the atrocities. And there’s always been something we’ve gotten wrong.”
“What’s that?” I ask, intrigued. Here’s the Kaelen that I actually like. He’s an intelligent and perceptive man. He might not be Sherlock Holmes, but he’s better than some of the cops I’ve worked with.
“We’ve picked places where the Hell King’s influence cannot be traced back to a single moment. The Holocaust . . . when did Hitler truly go insane enough for that idea? World War I? After the Treaty of Versailles? Maybe even before, when some of the ideas that he incorporated were growing throughout Europe?”
“I can’t say.”
Kaelen hums in agreement. “The Black Death, Nanking, you name it, we’re there after the seeds have been planted, after the dominoes start to fall. But I found one where we can be right there and stop the man, the atrocity, and the Hell King all at the same time.”
I swallow, eagerness firecracking through my stomach. “Where?”
“China, 1644. We need to find and stop a man called Zhang Xianzhong.”
I shake my head, not knowing anything about it. “Sorry, I’m a product of American public education. Fill me in.”
“He was a Chinese warlord, took over Sichuan province in 1644, and at first, people thought he was as great as apple pie. Then when some continued to resist him, he went . . . full-on.”
“Full-on?” I ask, and Kaelen nods.
“When his enemies retook a city in the spring of 1645, he went paranoid, thinking he had enemies both within and outside of his army and government. He reversed his original changes that liberali
zed the bureaucracy and started killing anyone he even suspected of being disloyal to him. He would have prisoners executed by the thousands, tens of thousands, even. To keep track, he would have his executioners place the heads in one pile, the hands in another, and other body parts in their own unique piles. He even had his most trusted concubine killed, her feet chopped off and placed on top of a pile of ten thousand others, and had it all set on fire as a so-called ‘heavenly candle.’ The man . . . the estimates are that his two-year reign of terror killed at least a third of the province. You can only imagine how so much darkness impacted the Fae realm.”
“What happened?” I ask, and Kaelen swallows.
“The wars that had torn apart the Fae realm had been petering out. The Council was starting to come together, and my father . . . the wars broke out again. Not just against demonic outsiders, but within the Fae as well. It was kingdom against kingdom, almost the darkest hour of Fae history. How my father led us out of that, I don’t know. If we stop one, we stop them all.”
“And you know how to stop him?” I ask, and Kaelen nods.
“September ninth, 1644, Zhang Xianzhong took the city of Chengdu. That night, he held a feast for his army and the population of the city. We can find him there, and we can take him out.”
“You want to kill the man? Why?”
“Because I do not think he’s a man. I think he’s the Hell King in human form,” Kaelen says. “Some of the writings attributed to him . . .”
I understand and reach out, taking Kaelen’s hand. “Well, hope you like spicy food, because Sichuan’s got a lot of it.”
This time, we work together, and I can feel Kaelen’s power assisting mine to make sure that we can’t be deflected as I touch the Moonstone, focusing on our destination. I can feel the same pressure trying to push us off course again, but with Kaelen’s strength combined with mine, we fight it off.
In a flash we land, and I take a moment to gather myself, to see where exactly we are and whom I’ve become.
Looking down, I see laminated armor on my wrists that look, ironically, a lot like my bracers. On my left hip is a sword, and between my legs . . .
“Well, what do you know?” I muse as I shake my hips left and right, feeling my cock wiggle in my trousers. It’s happened before, arriving in men’s bodies, but each time, it takes me a moment to adjust to the sensation. Although peeing standing up was sort of a guilty pleasure.
My wiggling sends a tingle through me, and I can feel myself start to stiffen a little for pretty much no reason at all. That’s a new one. “So that’s what that feels like.”
“We’re here.”
I look up and see Kaelen, his hair black but the face still there, dressed as I am. Over his torso’s a thickly padded coat, but if it’s like mine, there are steel plates woven inside it, making it heavy but also superb armor. His hair’s pulled back into a long, single braid, and over his shoulders is a cape that denotes he’s got rank of some kind. “We’re in the right place?”
Kaelen nods, and I take my bearings. The city certainly looks Chinese, but I’m no expert. I’ll have to take Kaelen’s word on it.
Ahead of us, on the other end of a large courtyard, a man in splendid but battle-worn armor stands at the top of long stone steps, looking out over his troops. Kaelen’s right. I can see the flash of green dark power in his eyes.
The Dark Rider . . . this time, in the flesh. The hair color’s wrong, but it’s him.
Kaelen goes to step forward, but before he can, I reach out, putting a hand on his shoulders and pulling him back. “Wait. Something’s wrong.”
“What?” Kaelen asks, and I look around. I’ve always found them before, within the first dozen or so people we see. Always, it doesn’t matter what time period, what place we go to, I see at least one of them. But this time, I don’t see them anywhere nearby. There are hundreds of people here, but among the faces, I don’t see any that are familiar.
“Where are my Guardians?” I ask worriedly.
“Kaelen, we’re alone.”
Chapter 27
Cole
“Where is Eve?” Cole repeats as he maintains his hold on the woman who looks so much like his beloved that it hurts him to be doing this. Even though his brain is telling him it’s not Eve, that the signs are clear, that this impostor might look like his Eve, might smell like his Eve, and might even sound like her . . . but it’s not her.
But Cole’s heart isn’t quite as ready to let go of the illusion and is rebelling against what his brain tells him. It says that he has the love of his life pinned painfully to the floor, her right shoulder nearly dislocated as he wrenches her wrist up harshly, grinding her forearm bones against each other just this side of breaking. It says he’s being a bastard.
“Cole . . . what are you doing?” Eve gasps, tears in her voice. “I was just joking around!”
Jacob, who’s on Cole’s left, kneels down and picks up the dagger from the ground. “Eve’s never had a silver dagger . . . nor would she use an enchanted one like this. Cole’s right. Who are you, and where is our Eve?”
Jacob’s assurances help Cole, and he twists the woman’s wrist slightly, increasing the pain as the last fraction of play in the bones is taken away. “I don’t wish to harm you . . . but I’ll tear your arm off if you don’t tell us what we want to know.”
“Can’t . . . need air,” the woman groans in a low voice, and Cole lets up a little. Reversing the keylock without letting go of the woman’s arm, he flips her over, straddling her while keeping her hand and wrist pinned to the floor painfully. If need be, he can break her wrist with a quick jerk of his hand on her elbow.
“That’s about the best you can expect,” Cole growls. The woman nods, suddenly reaching for her hair. Cole sees the poisoned scratch pin a moment before she can use it on herself, slapping it away to clatter against one of the mirrors.
The woman howls in anger, her eyes desperate. “No!”
“Last chance,” Cole says, leaning in on her elbow and increasing the pressure on her wrist. “We won’t kill you . . . but you’ll be in a world of pain before we turn you over to my sister. I’m sure Lorelai’s got some spells that she’s very, very eager to try out. So . . . where is Eve, and who do you work for?”
The woman’s eyes go wide at the mention of my sister, and her face pales. “N–no, not her.”
“Then talk!” Jacob yells. Noah and Tyler, who are checking our security as best they can in a mirror maze, glance back nervously, but they shouldn’t worry. I know this yell Jacob’s using. He calls it his ‘bad cop’ voice.
The woman winces but nods imperceptibly. “The Council . . . they want you dead.”
“Who on the Council?” I ask, staring into her eyes. “They can’t even unanimously decide on the color of piss. So who is it? Lightwing?”
The woman shakes her head. “No . . . yes. I . . . wait.”
Slowly, she reaches for a pendant around her neck and pulls sharply on the chain, snapping it. Her face and body shimmer, and I’m looking at a normal Fae woman, almost identical to Eve in terms of body shape but very, very different in her face.
“My name is Daelera . . . I’m a body servant in Lightwing’s service,” she says, smirking. “He ordered me to give your little halfling all sorts of personal attention, so I’ve been waiting hand and foot on her this whole time. I’m to report to him anything she says about the Hell King or her dark powers.”
Jacob’s eyes tighten, and Daelera laughs. “Did you—”
“No,” Daelera says with a laugh. “And I couldn’t distract her with my feminine wiles either. I saw that right away. She’s totally over the moon for you four. Too bad. It would have made my main mission much easier.”
“Which is?”
Daelera laughs, shaking her head. Cole nods to Jacob, who slaps Daelera hard, rocking her head to the side. “What is your mission?”
Daelera looks up at Jacob and spits bloodily at him, grinning. “To kill Eve and Kaelen. You
four just kept getting in the way, raising too much of a distraction.”
Cole blinks, stunned. “Wait . . . kill Eve and the emperor? So you work—”
“Always have been called a bit of a moon bat,” Daelera rasps, laughing painfully. “But when Cassina told me to kill you instead, I was happy to switch targets and let another team take out those two. Too dangerous right now.”
“What do you mean?” Cole demands, grabbing Daelera by the jaw. “What do you mean?”
“They’re . . . with the Moonstone,” Daelera grits through her teeth. “She’s unfettered. A team will be on their way to kill them now.”
“Not if we can help it,” Jacob says. “Where’s this Moonstone?”
Daelera laughs breathlessly. “Fuck you, Highlander.”
Jacob raises his hand to kill her, but Cole shakes his head. “No!”
“She deserves it, Cole,” Jacob says, but he tilts his hand, slamming Daelera in the head instead of the throat and knocking her out. “But you’re right. Eve wouldn’t want us to kill her.”
“Come on, we need to find Eve and Lightwing,” Cole says, getting off the limp body and flipping Daelera over, tying her up with cords from her dress. “Noah, you want the pleasure?”
“It’d be an honor,” Noah growls, grabbing Daelera and throwing her over his shoulder like a sack of grain. “But we need to hurry.”
Jacob turns and kicks, shattering a mirror and showing the side of the mirror maze. “When life hands you a maze . . . you make a fucking door,” he says without stopping, stepping through the hole. “Come on. I see another door I need to make.”
They rush back to the castle, stopping at the gate when Captain Connor comes out. “What are you . . . wait, that’s not the halfling.”
“No shit, motherfucker,” Jacob growls. “She’s a spy for Cassina and the Council. And for Lightwing . . . she’s a double-agent!”
Guardians of Moonlight: A Reverse Harem Fantasy Romance (Guardians of the Fae Book 3) Page 17
