by Cassi Carver
Kara’s first attempt to respond was merely a sputter. “No…that isn’t what Gavin wants. He promised I’d be there.”
“Well, he had to go, didn’t he? And most every silver-wing is with him. Good luck charming one of your demibreed guards to take you to the Shadowland. Oh, wait—I forgot! They don’t have wings.”
Aiden’s own silver wings stretched from his back. “Men!” he called, and three wingless warriors burst into Gavin’s room.
“Yes, my lord?” the one in charge said.
“Keep Lady Kara comfortable as we discussed. She’s been unwell and she needs to stay in bed. No travel whatsoever until this thing is finished, understood?”
“Yes, sir.” With a collective nod, they went back out the door, closing it behind them.
Aiden pulled a small knife from the belt at his waist. Kara went wide-eyed when Aiden slowly brought the blade to her throat, but she didn’t move. There was no way he would hurt her, and she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of flinching.
He grasped the leather cords around her neck, the charms jangling in his grip, then he cut them free and thrust them into his pocket. “I am sorry, Kara, but I can’t allow you to summon one of those men you have wrapped around your finger.”
“You bastard,” she whispered, feeling truly stranded and scared for the first time on Mercury Island.
He straightened with a nod. “As I said…I’m sorry.” Then he shocked her by taking her hand and getting on his knees beside the bed. She tried to pull away, but he held firm. “There’s a chance I may not come back, and there’s something I need to say to you.”
Seeing the earnest expression on his face and then adding to that the fact that he’d just mercilessly stranded her here on the island, she was gob-smacked, unable to say “go ahead” or even “take a flying leap”.
He looked into her eyes and took a deep breath. “The first time I saw you, I was stupefied by your beauty, your scent, everything about you. I looked at you, and I knew you were different from the other ladies. I knew I wanted you.”
Kara swallowed, and the room began to spin like a pinwheel with Aiden’s face at the center. She had to open her mouth and tell him to stop, but she couldn’t.
He sandwiched her hand between both of his and continued. “And then I got to know you—the real you that you so often hide. And I have to say, Kara, you may have good intentions, but you are one enormous pain in the ass. I don’t hate you, but even if I return from this battle, you and I…we’re never going to happen. I’m truly sorry.”
What the fuck? “Uhm…that’s okay. It’s probably for the best.” She gave his bottom hand a hearty squeeze—hopefully painfully hearty—and released it.
He stood and bowed and an instant later, Aiden was gone. And with him, so was her final chance to help Gavin reclaim his son.
So that was it? She was really gonna give up that easily? No. Not after she’d come this far.
She jumped from the bed with the sheet wrapped around her and with a quick glance, found her clothing folded neatly on the seat of one of Gavin’s antique chairs. Then she thought better of it and shoved the clothing under a cushion.
“Uh, guys? A little help here?”
A demibreed warrior poked his head in. “Yes, my lady?”
“I’m feeling better now. Lord Aiden said you would find me a silver-wing to take me back to my apartment to get changed. Who have we got still on the island?”
A man she couldn’t see chuckled from the hall. “I owe you ten silver pieces. How did you know?”
The one who’d answered her summons smiled. “Because she’s a crafty one. Just look at her, asking to return to her apartment for clothing as though Lord Gavin hasn’t provided her with a full wardrobe in the very room next door. That is exactly the deception we are to watch for.”
He laughed again, and Kara’s cheeks heated. “What? I’ve never seen any clothes here. Are you serious? I haven’t even tried them on. They probably don’t even fit.”
“Let us look, shall we?” He offered her his arm, but she breezed past him and went straight to the double armoire in her huge suite.
She pulled the doors open and her jaw sagged. Dresses. Dresses. More dresses. “What? How am I supposed to fight in these? I’d trip on the hem.”
Plus, most of them were pastel. Battles clearly called for primary colors, preferably on the dark end of the spectrum.
The warrior shrugged. “I think they would look splendid in bed—where you were told to stay.”
Her temper had never been good when it came to sexism, but now, her fangs and claws slid instantly into place. Her voice was a rumble when she growled, “I’m not getting back in that bed. You wanna try to make me?”
“If you force the issue, then yes.”
Kara’s claws bit into her palms. “Ten silver pieces to the man who tries it. I double-dog dare you.”
“Double-dog?” asked the other man. “That sounds serious.”
“My lady,” said the first warrior, “let’s not go down that road. I will be skinned alive if you so much as set foot outside the palace. I can find you something more suitable, even pants perhaps, from one of the human camp companions. Would that be acceptable?”
“Oh, whatever.” Kara stormed back into Gavin’s room and slammed the door. She went to the chair and dropped the sheet, then she latched her bra and pulled her long-sleeved black shirt over her head.
As she began to thread her foot through one leg of her black pants, she heard a huge commotion in the hallway, shouts and screams, no swords clashing as she might have thought. And then just as she was yanking her pants up the final way and fumbling for the button, the door to Gavin’s room literally blew off its hinges.
The first warrior’s body fell through the doorway, riddled with arrows from his chest to his face. And over him stepped a white-haired man with black eyes—a man she never thought to see here on the island.
Brakken.
Chapter Seventeen
“Ah! My sweet daughter-in-law! At last we meet!” When the black-wing smiled at Kara, his mouth was an expanse of sharp, pointed teeth.
“H-how did you get through the wards?” she stammered.
“This is my son’s land, is it not? Are you suggesting I was not invited here?” Brakken looked hurt and confused, and Kara couldn’t tell if it was an act, or if he really believed that Gavin would have welcomed him to the island.
Kara thought frantically, but there was no escape. She couldn’t use her charms to call for help from a silver-wing who could get her the hell out of here. She couldn’t fight Brakken. Even if she screamed loudly enough to get another demibreed’s attention, Brakken would only kill them.
“Gavin isn’t here. Would you like to stop by later?”
Brakken smiled. “No, I thought it would be more fun to take you to my home and wait for Gavine there. He loves you, you know. I never thought I would see my boy attach to one woman, but he has. It warms my heart. I can only imagine how special you must be to have won his love.”
“No, I’m not that special. Really.” She’d heard Brakken had black eyes, but she didn’t realize how terrifying it would be to look into those completely bottomless orbs. There was no other color, not white on the edges or anything in the center at his pupil. Just black.
“Nonsense.” He stepped closer and she noted his gaunt cheeks and pallid skin. Aniliáre weren’t supposed to look old, but it was as if his wicked soul had started eating at his exterior. “You’re just being modest. I imagine you must have wondrous attributes to garner Gavine’s attention. After all, you did kill his twin brother. The closest living relative to him in existence. For him to so easily forget that, you must be quite…amazing.”
She saw it in his eyes when his game ended, and she couldn’t help it, she turned and bolted. She didn’t make it two steps before he grabbed her by her long brown hair and slammed her head into the nightstand. Pain blasted through her skull, but she didn’t lose consciousness.
>
A moment later, the darkness engulfed her. She waited for the agony of flashing to the other realm, but the only things she felt were the substantial pain in her head where Brakken had thrown her into the nightstand and the now constant low-grade pain from her back injury.
A few seconds after he’d abducted her from Mercury Island they were already in Brakken’s kingdom. Gavin knew where his father’s kingdom was, but would he figure out Kara was missing before it was too late? And even if he did, how could he get past his father? This was so, so bad.
“Who is that?” a soft voice said from behind her.
Kara tried to spin, but Brakken still had her hair. All she could see from her vantage point were drab gray walls.
“This is Kara Reed, daughter of Teras and Deanna. I also consider her a part of my family, seeing as Gavine traded his brother for her,” Brakken told someone.
“I didn’t want to hurt Gable,” Kara said. “He had my friend tied up, and he was killing her. And then he almost decapitated Julian. I was next.” She couldn’t control her quaking. “What else could I have done?”
Brakken grabbed Kara’s cheeks, and his claws pushed out so far they were as long as his hand. “Yes, you killed my favored son and turned my second against me—but that’s all in the past. It’s nothing to worry your pretty head over.” When he leaned in and kissed her cheek, his breath was putrid, like rotting flesh. “What we have to look forward to is our future, Kara Reed. You and I.”
She swallowed down the bile that rose in her throat. There were so many things she wanted to say, but she remained silent. Anything she said might give away Gavin’s plans of sending Brakken to where he most deserved to be.
“In the meantime, meet your new sisters. Get acquainted, and I will be back to check on you soon.” And with that, Brakken vanished.
Kara turned slowly, not sure who she was about to meet. There was a heavily pregnant woman with golden-brown hair that fell to her waist and exotic eyes almost the same shade as her hair. She had skin the color of fresh honey, but her beautiful eyes were rimmed in red.
The pregnant woman held another woman in her arms, and this woman had black hair, not more than an inch long, and skin as pale as the other woman’s was rich. The black-haired woman didn’t seem to be breathing, but then her lungs had been used as a pincushion. At least a dozen arrows protruded from her chest at every angle, and three of those went straight through her heart.
Kara locked eyes with the first woman. “Rachel?”
Upon hearing her name, the woman’s lips parted. “You know of me, Kara Reed?”
“Yes, of course, Gavin…” She wanted to say that Gavin had spoken of her, but the oddity of the situation robbed her of words. Really, what was the appropriate thing to say to her lover’s baby mama?
“Gavin…” Rachel whispered. “He remembered me?”
Kara was surprised. Did Rachel think Gavin wouldn’t remember her? How well did she even know him? “Of course he remembers. He even has a home waiting for you. It’s gorgeous, built especially for you and your son. I think you’ll like life on Mercury Island.”
Kara wasn’t sure what she’d said, but Rachel’s eyes welled anew. “I’m sure I would like it very much. But you don’t seem to understand—we’re never going to escape the Monster. It’s not possible.” As she said the last word, she grimaced and clutched her stomach.
Kara dropped to the floor and scooted closer. “Are you okay?”
Rachel shook her head. “No. The child is coming soon, and my Darrinda—” she looked down at her friend and cradled her head closer to her breast, “—Darri is in need of rest. I’m afraid she may miss the birth.”
With three arrows through her heart, Darrinda would need some major regeneration. The baby might be talking before Rachel’s BFF woke again. But there was no reason to voice that and cause Rachel even more suffering. “I think you’re right.”
“Will you help me?” Rachel asked.
“Yes. What can I do?”
Rachel glanced down at Darrinda’s still body. “I need to remove these arrows so that she can begin to heal. I tried one. I can’t do another.” She picked up the remnant of an arrow and held it up to Kara, and it was then that Kara realized Rachel’s hands were completely covered in blood.
“You want me to…uh…pull those arrows out?” Oh, please no.
Rachel cried out again, and the way she writhed told Kara that the baby was coming sooner rather than later. “Do you think, maybe, we should do it after the baby is born?”
Rachel met Kara’s eyes and looked daggers at her. “No. Now. Darrinda needs the arrows out now.”
“Okay. Sure. I can do that.” Kara nodded, trying to convince herself that was true.
She walked on her knees until she was thigh to thigh with the black-haired woman. She seemed dead, and maybe with her regeneration stalled, that’s exactly what she was until Kara got these arrows out.
Kara moved the shaft of one, investigating how to pull it out.
“No!” Rachel cried, and Kara jumped back. “You can’t pull it through without first severing the fletching. I want nothing left inside her.”
“The fletching?” Kara repeated.
“Yes, the feathery part.”
“Ah. Okay.” Now, how to do that? She extended her red claws and used the tip of one to scratch a deep groove around the base of the feathers. When that was done, she snapped the end off as gently as she could.
When Rachel moaned and moved down on her mat, Kara knew she had to hurry. She didn’t want to be insensitive to Darrinda’s plight, but after all, her head was still on. Kara didn’t need to worry much about any damage she did pulling the arrows free.
What had looked like a dozen arrows had been ten, but by the time Kara was finished plucking them from the woman’s body, she was shaking head to toe. Brakken really was a monster.
“Okay, I think that’s it,” Kara told Rachel. “All the arrows are out, and no feathers were left in.” She readjusted Darrinda’s body so it lay stretched out on the mat, close to Rachel but still giving the pregnant woman some room. “Rachel?” Kara said, glancing over at her when she didn’t answer.
Rachel had rolled to her side, her hands clutching her stomach, her face contorted in agony. “Darri said the baby should have been born by now. Something must be the matter with him. Eva?”
Who’s Eva? Kara wanted to ask, but it seemed rude to make Rachel answer any questions under the circumstances.
A moment later, a huge guard with a quiver of arrows strapped to his back walked through the door. “What are you hollering about, Rachel?”
“Eva,” she panted. “I need Eva. The child is stuck.”
He laughed. “I offered to help before, but you didn’t take me up on it. Don’t complain about it now. And Eva is indisposed. She won’t be available for at least an hour.” He smiled and poked a finger at Kara. “That one can help you.”
When the guard left the room, Kara looked to Rachel and saw the blood staining the bottom of her flowing nightdress. It was then it occurred to Kara that she might just be in hell. “I’ve never delivered a baby before. I’m not sure I can do it.”
Rachel’s forehead was dripping sweat, and her cheeks had bright pink splotches on them. “You will do fine.”
“I’ve never even seen a real live birth.”
“Kara—” Rachel met her eyes and smiled with a quiet strength, “—you can do this, because you have to do this. I can’t turn the baby myself.”
Kara felt her blood drain to her extremities. “Turn the baby?”
“Yes. Simply reach up there and make sure his head is in the proper position. Turn him if you have to. If you feel his feet first, then the best we can do is make sure his leg isn’t stuck at an angle. If both feet are together, grip them firmly at the next contraction and pull. I may lose consciousness, but the contractions will not stop until he is delivered. You must do this. You have to.”
Hell. Yes, she was in it.
> Julian looked out over his land at the hundred-plus warriors in full battle gear standing in neat rows. They wore thick breastplates with metal collars to protect their necks. The breastplates would slow all but Brakken’s arrows, which were shaped from his will.
The strange flashes in Julian’s mind were distracting him at a time when he most needed clarity. But since his time with Mazeki, a feeling like déjà vu was ever with him. It was almost maddening, seeing things and sensing something familiar, but not being able to put a name to it.
“Julian,” Gavin said from behind him.
He almost couldn’t bring himself to turn around. But he did. “Yes?”
“We’re ready, and I have good news. Kara is awake and resting in my room on Mercury Island. She seems to be over her bloodlust, and now she is safe from the battle as well.”
Julian nodded. “Do we have any idea what triggered her illness or why she went unconscious again?”
Gavin frowned and folded his hands. “No, I’m not sure.”
As strange as it was, Julian could honestly say he was thankful Gavin had been training with Kara when it had happened. He wasn’t sure he trusted anyone else to care for her on the surface. “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For watching out for her.”
“You don’t need to thank me. I protect her because I love her and for the memory of my friend, who loved her as well.”
Inexplicably, Julian’s vision went red. “You don’t think I love her—me? Not that damned old Julian you all were so fond of.”
Gavin sighed. “I think you love her as an Aniliáre loves, as though she is a treasured possession. I’ve never seen more from a black-wing. I suppose it doesn’t really matter. Who am I to judge one’s love?”
“It does matter,” Julian answered. “I’ve successfully traveled to the surface, and when I learn to navigate it better, I will come for her. I can’t keep her safe from a distance, so I don’t see the point in being apart.”
