Rage Against the Devil (Wild Beasts Series Book 2)

by T. Birmingham

  Danny could never know what had happened with Loch and Carrie.

  “Eire is going to kill that psychotic Fae,” Nicky said, catching Carrie’s gaze.

  She nodded, and hope filled her eyes like salvation, and he wanted to help her. He wanted to help her so badly, but he couldn’t. He could only help Danny in that moment.

  “And when she does,” he continued, “when we bring you back, you’re going to get your things from your cabin, and you’re going to leave.”

  Carrie’s gaze never faltered. In fact, she didn’t seem at all surprised by his statement. A new light entered her formerly apathetic stare, and her face softened in understanding, not in anger.

  “For Danny,” she whispered and Nicky nodded. “This isn’t Loch’s fault. I couldn’t deal with what Cam had done, and I let myself become an addict to Loch, who isn’t a miracle worker. No. Poor Loch could only offer me momentary freedom,” Carrie said as she looked at the Fae who was still under the power of his Blood and Bone Fae master. “He tried to stop Lochlan from taking me. He tried to protect me. And this past year, he’s been one of the reasons I’ve been okay, that I’ve been able to deal.”

  Her voice was groggy but confident. Nicky tried to cut in, but she put her hand up as stood slowly. “No, Nicky. Don’t.” Her green eyes held such deep sadness that Nicky felt like all her secrets were written there. “I was broken. I was dying inside, and Loch helped me. He helped me get better. He fixed what he could.” She blew out a breath and let her weight fall against the tree. “And then, Lochlan came and Loch tried to fight his hold, but the naming is powerful. And when Loch could no longer fight, he was made to watch as his father…he did things, Nicky…” Carrie’s voice trailed off as tears raced down her dark face.

  Nicky felt disgusted at what he knew Lochlan Trappe, the monster, had done. He’d seen the Fae’s handiwork just a month and a half earlier.

  “I truly felt like I had died that day, Nicky. The day Cam rained fire down on all of us. I felt like a part of me had died.” She looked him dead in the eye. “I didn’t know death, Nicky,” Carrie said, looking away and staring at the expanse of stars surrounding them. “Now…now, I know death. So, if you want me to run, I will run, because Danny was the only person other than Loch who kept me going. But I’m no good for him now.” She breathed in a ragged breath and then looked at him once more. “Danny…” Tears were in her eyes, and Nicky wanted to give in, to tell her come home with them, to take back his words. “No,” she stated with confidence he’d never seen her show, “my sins will never touch him.”

  She got it. He saw that in her eyes. She got his meaning. There was something pure and innocent in Danny, something left unchanged by the harshness of the world, and Carrie being Fae touched would not go away. It would get worse. He hated himself for what he knew she would go through, but he would hate himself more, and he knew Carrie would hate herself as well, if her being Fae touched destroyed Danny. Carefree, loving, good, funny, loyal, honest, steady Danny who gave so much to all of them even though he didn’t owe them anything.

  “Carrie, I—”

  “No, Nicholas Arviso,” Carrie said, kneeling down next to him. “You can’t take it back now. I’d already decided I would leave soon. Even with Eire and her acceptance of me…I knew it was time. So, no. You don’t get to take it back. I’m going no matter what you say now.”

  The decision felt right, like it was always meant to be this way. Fuck it all, he hated that thought. Had they really all been meant to go through so much anguish? He hoped to hell not, but he knew the truth.

  Yes.

  Yes, they had always been meant to experience the many facets of good and evil, but also of Dark and Light.

  He looked out at the Fae of Blood and Bone as Eire’s colors swirled around the god-turned Fae, and he saw Alexia’s red aura spread out and join in with the colorful refreshing cold. The falling snow and the heat from a fire lit in the hearth of a home.

  Joining.

  Creating.

  Destroying.

  Unmaking.

  The shifting form of the Fae was like the ever-changing screen of a faulty television unable to get a signal.

  Switch.

  Lochlan.

  Switch.

  Female wolf.

  Switch.

  Nessa.

  Switch.

  Male wolf.

  Switch.

  Nessa.

  Switch.

  Henry.

  Switch.

  Switch.

  Switch.

  Nicky wanted to jump in and rescue them, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t move. And also, his brawn wouldn’t help. Only their gifts would.

  Their gifts that held the god in the confines of their combined power.

  A charge hit the air and a woman with dark hair appeared near the group gathered on the other side of the clearing. Her ghostly form wavered in the wind, unsteady, barely corporeal, but her power was still a heady thing.

  “Titania,” Alexia whispered, and Titania’s look spoke of pity and guilt.

  “Kill them!” Titania yelled. “Kill my Lycan.”

  Nessa was now the dark wolf with the green eyes once again. A strong powerful wolf, and Nicky understood then why Titania had been sharing bits and pieces of her story with Alexia and Eire. She’d wanted them to know her role in this. She’d wanted them to be prepared.

  Lycan had not died.

  “Lycan, the god Lycan, the Trickster,” Eire said. “Our Histories speak of which gods fought on the side of humans, and your mate was one of them.” Eire’s focus on the power holding the shapeshifter in never faltered, even as she questioned the ghostly form of the goddess who had been overthrown by her own mate masquerading as Nessa Trappe.

  Titania’s head fell, and if she’d been able, Nicky thought she’d be crying. “Yes, Eire. The Fae are changing. Have been for several thousand years. And Lycan was one of the first to show the symptoms of madness.” The goddess looked at Matt, Eire, Alexia, and Melina. “But I ignored the signs. I’d lost my mother. I was Queen of the Fae. I had too much to deal with. But when Nessa came to me and she shifted forms, I knew. I knew who she really was. I knew what she’d done. I knew what my Lycan had done. What they’d done to Vuković. What they’d eventually done to my Gaelan, who I learned to love—”

  The wolf growled and shifted into the form of a man.

  Titania flinched, but her voice did not falter.

  “You are not my Lycan, Fae. You may once have been Lycan, but you are not the man I once knew. The things you have done…” Titania shuddered and looked to Eire and the others. “You must kill him. I know you thought you’d be killing Lochlan and Nessa, Eire, but they are the same being. Lochlan. Nessa. My Lycan. Lycan was once a powerful Trickster with a fated mate. He loved me, but he lost his memories and became mad little by little. And I became colder because of that. I couldn’t take any other loss. I couldn’t. I just couldn’t.”

  “You became cold, and the Fae had become cold with you. A leader is her people, isn’t that what you told us, Titania?” Alexia asked.

  “A lesson I learned only after my grandson, Vuković, was tortured. When I eventually confronted the Fae responsible, the woman who was now Nessa, but who had once been my Lycan, took my thrown and my bonded mate, Gaelan’s, life.” Titania ran her hands through her ghostly long hair, and looked to the younger Loch who stood tall, but captive, at Nicky’s side. Eire flinched at the sight of her brother, but still her power did not falter. “Eire, kill my Lycan,” Titania pleaded, and Eire’s face took on a look of Stone, but the Stone was not void of emotion. No, his Eire still had all the strength she needed, but in her eyes were a thousand emotions, so much emotion he didn’t know of anyone else who would be able to hold what his fated mate held.

  Switch.

  Wolf.

  Switch.

  Lochlan.

  Smiling as he looked at Eire, a look of such hate, Nicky had to swallow the bile in his throat. No o
ne had any right to look at Eire in that way. If he had his strength, he’d rip the Fae limb to limb, except Lochlan wasn’t really Fae, was he? He was a fucking god. Jesus.

  Switch.

  Nessa.

  “Oh, Ice,” Nessa said as she moved right up to the barrier Alexia and Eire’s power created.

  “Don’t.” Eire’s voice traveled across the clearing, strong and sure. “You don’t get to call me that. I am not Ice. I am Stone and Swords, and both of those gifts require vengeance, but this is not my kill.” Eire, Alexia, and Matt stood to the side, and Melina stepped forward, her own pure, white aura reaching out.

  Switch.

  Lochlan.

  “That is not possible!” Lochlan’s voice rang clear, much like his daughter’s had done, but the Trickster, for all of its godlike power, did not have the strength Eire herself had. Power the goddess, Morrigan, had given her.

  Eire, Melina, and Alexia all smiled in unison, confident, powerful, unbroken despite all they had experienced, and his own wolf’s heart expanded and beat stronger. He looked down at his chest and felt his skin knit as it pushed out the poison.

  He felt the bile in his stomach rise, his heartbeat increase, and he threw up the rest of the poison that had tried to invade his body. But he was not just Vuković. He was Nivea’s child. Titania’s child. A Luna’s child. The child of the Queen of the Fae and the Clan.

  “You’re healing.” Loch moved as though working his way through quicksand until he fell to his knees.

  “Seems so,” Nicky said, anger lacing his words. The man might have been under the power of the naming, but Loch had still been the cause of so much pain.

  Loch seemed to shrug off whatever hold had been over him. “Our grandmother and father, or Lycan as is their true form, tried to take the throne in his madness, but the rightful ruler of the Fae are the blood children of Titania. The Blood and Bone Fae could not have held the power for much longer. Especially with the two attempts on his life – when Eire attacked our father and when Matt attempted to kill Nessa. Their power has been waning for years now. Hence, the insanity,” Loch said.

  Nicky felt his skin reknit and his strength return, but fear entered his mind.

  “Am I—”

  “Nope. Sorry,” Loch answered succinctly, sitting down next to Nicky as though all his strength had been sapped.

  Nicky was not the only child of Titania.

  So, he wasn’t meant to take the throne and his brother, Kai, was dead.

  That left only one other.

  “My sister, Isabella.”

  “Yes. She is the one who will hold the power of the Fae.”

  Shit.

  His baby sister. The Queen of the Fae. The Queen of the Veil.

  He brushed the thought aside. Now was not the time to dive into that bucket of crazy.

  Nicky saw the blinding light that was Melina move forward and a new barrier of swirling color and red fire surrounded the Azima as she removed the knife from her back pocket. He knew what the knife was: iron and ore surrounding a core of yew tree wood. Matt had already told them all what would kill a Fae.

  But this was not just any Fae. This was an original Fae. This was an ex-god.

  Nicky had an idea, and he hoped it was crazy enough to work. He stood up, not fully healed, but better than he had been, and he looked to Carrie. “I need some of your blood.”

  She didn’t ask questions. She took a Swiss Army knife from her back pocket and sliced deep into her wrist.

  Nicky saw Eire look their way, worried, but her power held and he nodded to her.

  “And yours,” he said to Loch, who also cut his palm with the same blade.

  Nicky curved his palm to collect Carrie’s and Loch’s blood, and then he moved quickly to Eire’s side, leaning down to give her a kiss on her forehead. He couldn’t help it. He needed to feel her.

  “Hey, Vanilla.” He turned to the rest of the group, giving a nod toward Matt and Alexia and finally, “Melina—”

  “It’s Lina or Ina,” the powerful woman said, not in chastisement, but in confidence.

  Nicky smiled. “Lina,” he said, taking on the nickname. Ina was Eire’s name for her. “Henry or Nessa or whatever we want to call this thing…he was created in battle. He is a Blood and Bone Fae because he was a Trickster, a shapechanging god, but if we can separate the god from the power of the Shades, and if we can use the dagger, I think with Alexia’s power and Eire’s gift of Stone, we can unmake what he has become, undo what Morrigan did.” He held out his hand for the knife, but Lina wouldn’t budge. “I’m not going to take the knife. I’m giving you the blood of his most recent victims, Loch and Carrie. Blood made him. Blood should undo him with the power we have in this circle. Dip the weapon in this.”

  Lina looked over to the dark-skinned woman sitting further off from Loch and in the pool of Nicky’s blood, her mind elsewhere, her eyes staring up at the stars. Nicky glanced at Eire, and saw the anxiety in her increase. But he also watched as Lina dipped the knife in the blood. Then, Lina cut her own skin, coating the knife in her own blood.

  “As Nessa is one of the forms this monster takes, I suppose my blood should go on the fucking knife, too,” Matt said gruffly, and Nicky nodded as he cut his own arm as well, smearing his blood on the knife.

  Eire hushed him when he tried to stop her from doing the same, but her blood joined everyone else’s. What he didn’t expect was Alexia also cutting her arm and putting her own blood droppings on the knife.

  “He fucked with my people. A ruler’s people are only as good as their ruler. I will be as good, as honorable, as loyal, as grounded, as open, as giving and loving as you all are, and I will earn my place as your leader,” Alexia said. No one fought the statement. She might be the future Clan councilor for the Skröm and the Vuković, but she was their leader.

  Their blood ran down the knife as Lina moved forward once more.

  The god-turned-Fae was now in the form of Lochlan once more, but Nicky worried at the silence. He’d been too contemplative, too silent. Nicky loved the peace and quiet, but not right then. A quiet god was a tricky god.

  Blood and Bone Fae.

  An ex-god who had been a Trickster.

  Before he could say as much, Lochlan’s shape changed once again.

  Switch.

  Cam.

  Cam with green eyes rather than the brown eyes with flecks of gold he knew Cam to have.

  He wasn’t really Cam.

  Cam had been his own man.

  But even Nicky felt Lina’s halting steps, heard the gasp come from Alexia.

  “Melina.” Cam’s voice whispered along his skin like ants crawling up and down his spine and he felt his back bow at the unnatural sound of Cam’s voice in the Trickster’s form.

  “Y-y-y-you’re not Cam,” Lina said, but her voice was unsure. Her Light dimmed a bit, and he saw her arm drop. Before the weapon could fall to the ground, Alexia and Eire were there at Lina’s side. Matt came to stand at his side, ready.

  Alexia grabbed one of Lina’s hands and Eire grabbed the hand that held the weapon, sharing the burden of carrying the implement.

  “What if I am?” the Trickster asked. “What if I was Cam all along?”

  “N-n-n-n—”

  “No, Melina? Are you sure?” The Trickster once again moved to the edge of the barrier.

  “Don’t listen, Lina,” Alexia whispered. She looked to the Blood and Bone Fae. “What did Cam love more than anything then, Fae?”

  He saw Eire tilt her head and smile. She’d thought of something. He got funny feeling in his gut as he watched her face reveal that she had a plan.

  “Power,” the Trickster answered, but Alexia just smiled and shook her head.

  “Idiot god.” Alexia wiped at a tear on her face. “Mindy,” she whispered into the wind, and he could swear he heard a caw from far away.

  No one else seemed to hear, but when he heard the sound a second time, he looked up to see a red cardinal flying overhead. Ale
xia looked up and guilt crossed her features. Then, anger.

  “Not today, you damn bird. We won’t be dying today,” Alexia told the red cardinal. The cardinal, instead of ignoring the statement seemed to nod its head before it went to settle on the barely corporeal shoulder of Titania.

  “Beautiful little one,” Titania said into the cardinal’s ear, “she will know the truth someday.”

  The bird seemed to accept the answer, as though it had a consciousness. He’d seen stranger things.

  Eire had taken advantage of the distraction the bird had given, and she’d started using her knives to draw crude pictograms of wolves. Not quite what he’d seen in the clearing. His mate wasn’t much of an artist. But close enough. She drew them around her and Alexia’s circle of power and then called Nicky to her side at the Eastern part of the powerful barrier before moving herself to the West.

  “Matt, go to the North, and Alexia to the South.”

  They took their positions, but Lina held her frozen position near the edge of the circle. The weapon was held firmly in her hands, but it was like she couldn’t move, couldn’t think beyond the mirage of Cam, who still stood in the center of the circle.

  “She can’t kill me,” the shapechanging Blood and Bone Fae said, Cam’s face and voice still eerily in check.

  “Lochlan Vincenzo Trappe, you are dead to me,” Eire said into the circle.

  He saw Lina perk up and her eyes go wide at Eire’s use of the naming. She hadn’t known. Even until this moment, Lina had not known that Lochlan and Nessa were Trappes.

  “Nessa Ardmore Trappe, you are dead to me!” Matthew yelled across the clearing from his place in the barrier.

  “Trickster, god of the fallen, shapechanger, messenger, destroyer, Lycan, wolf, god of many faces, you are dead to me,” Eire finished, but she gave Lina a meaningful look.

  The colors swirling around them increased and then he smelled the fire, smelled the scent he hadn’t smelled in a year and a half as Alexia’s aura turned bright red and her eyes lit up. Her own barrier of fire increased in power with the swirling colors Eire was letting loose, and he saw the Fae’s form switch in and out, now completely uncontrollable, completely unbound, completely lost.