Taste My Wrath (The Iron Fae Book 1)

by Debbie Cassidy

  “No,” he said again. “I’m not going to make it.”

  I wanted to argue with him, but his face was bloodless, his brow beaded with perspiration, and although the wound at his shoulder had mostly stopped bleeding, it had gone black and green around the edges, and an icky smell was coming from it. A dead smell.

  “I can feel it inside me,” he said. “The dead feeling.”

  I shook my head. “We keep going.”

  “No.” He gripped my hand. “I’ll only slow you down and for nothing. Listen to me, Dani. Listen. You have to make it out alive. You have to get to the Keep and find the weapon.”

  “What? How do you know about that?”

  He coughed and wheezed. “I didn’t get picked by lottery. I volunteered.”

  What? He had everything he needed back home. “Karl…Why would you do that?”

  “We want the same thing, Dani. To be free of them. You’re not alone, but right now, you are our only hope.”

  Our hope? “Who are you talking about?”

  The snap of a twig had my head whipping up. I scanned the clearing. “Karl, we need to go. Now.”

  I tried to pull him to his feet, but he resisted. “Go, Dani.”

  “I’m not leaving you.”

  His mouth turned down in sorrow. “I know. Tell Elsi I love her. Tell her I died well.” And then he slit his own throat.

  I stared at him as the life bled from his eyes. I hadn’t seen the dagger. I hadn’t seen it…

  Another crack.

  Shit.

  Goodbye, Karl.

  I turned and ran.

  Solo, I was fast.

  Solo, I made it to the wall in half the time, but I wasn’t the only one. Several figures had beat me to it. Humans like me. I heard them before I saw them and slowed my pace as I approached the edge of the clearing that housed access to the wall. There were four humans standing by the pillar that housed a lever and instructions that were actually a warning. They argued and gesticulated. For fucksake, if I could hear them with my human hearing, then any shining ones close by would be getting an earful too.

  I hung back in the tree line and blended into the growing shadows.

  “I say we fucking pull the lever and deal with whatever happens,” a wiry guy said. He stood taller than the others, his face set in a scowl. My gut told me he was the self-appointed leader of this group.

  “Like last time?” one of the women said.

  There were two females and one other guy in the group. It wasn’t lost on me how the remaining woman and guy stepped back from the speakers as if distancing themselves physically would be enough to avoid being drawn into verbal conflict.

  “She should have listened to me,” the wiry guy said.

  “You only care about yourself.”

  “Fuck you, bitch. I’m not getting killed because you’re too scared to fight whatever comes when I pull that lever.”

  “It says the price is flesh and bone. What the fuck do you think that means?”

  The guy reached for the lever, and the woman shoved him. He responded by backhanding her. The other woman cried out in alarm, but the remaining guy shrank back, shying away from a fight. The wiry, angry-looking one pulled the lever.

  The world rumbled, and then it began to rain in the clearing. For a moment, nothing happened, and then the people by the pillar began to scream. Their skin was steaming.

  It was the rain.

  It was burning their skin.

  The man who’d pulled the lever moved fast. He grabbed the woman closest to him and yanked at her top, ignoring his own pain. She didn’t fight him hard enough, and then he had her shirt, which he wrapped around his head. The others clawed at their faces, and skin melted onto their bubbling fingers, hanging there in fleshy strings. The wall began to shimmer, and a door opened up inside it.

  The wiry man ran through.

  The other humans fell to the ground. It was too late for them, but not for me. I had to get through the door. But how could I avoid the burning rain?

  The answer came to me suddenly.

  The tarp?

  I had a fucking tarp.

  The door up ahead was beginning to close. Shit. I grabbed the tarp from my pack, threw it over my head, and ran toward the aperture. Droplets still managed to sting my fingers, but I was fast, sprinting across the ground toward the door and through.

  The world went bright, blinding me, and then I was thrown forward. I flung my arms out to brace my fall.

  Slowly, the brightness ebbed, and I could see again.

  Emerald blades of grass pricked my palms, and a sweet scent filled my nostrils. I pulled myself up and stared at the rolling plains below me. I was on a hill, and below me was nothing but lush green meadows and winding streams. Nothing but open ground. And far beyond it all was the shimmer of the skywall.

  A chill bit into my heart.

  Summer was going to be deadly.

  26

  Night came too quickly, and there was nowhere to hide in this mockery of the Summerlands. There were too many wide spaces with open plains and not enough forest cover. The heat was unbearable, leaving me sweaty and sticky beneath my leather vest and arm and leg braces, but I’d be damned if I was about to shuck off my armor. Not when I was being hunted.

  Somehow, the Summer champions had caught wind of me. They were hunting me. I’d evaded them twice now, once by crossing a stream, which confirmed to me that they either couldn’t or didn’t like crossing running water. And the second time, by hiding behind a waterfall. The heat had dried off my clothes in no time, though, thank goodness, and there was no denying the cool water had been a relief against my feverishly hot skin. But they had my scent, they were tracking me, and I had no doubt they’d keep coming until they had me. I needed to get to the wall. Just keep moving until I reached the center.

  Night brought the shadows and some relief. I used them for cover, and the tiny copse I’d discovered was the perfect rest spot.

  Would Killion find me here? Would he come? An hour ticked by as I huddled under a slender tree. I checked my compass again and again. I was headed in the right direction. No rumbles, no horns. No warnings. It made it harder, not easier. I guess that was what the architect of this place had intended.

  Somewhere someone screamed.

  I squeezed my eyes closed and resisted the urge to leap up and head toward the cry. I couldn’t save everyone. I was here to save Nina and whoever they had taken from me and placed in the center of this labyrinth that wasn’t a labyrinth.

  I had to stay alive. No risks.

  But it’s nighttime now. Now is when we are strongest.

  The sword.

  I touched the pommel lightly. It had been silent throughout the day, and I’d almost forgotten it could speak.

  Killion had asked me to trust it.

  There are Tuatha not far from us. To the east. Two. We can kill these two.

  My heart beat faster. I needed to wait for Killion. I couldn’t take any risks.

  You don’t need to wait for any man. You are your own mistress, and together we have the power. There is no risk in the certainty of victory. Besides, if there are fewer threats, the course will be smoother.

  I felt that power then, coursing through my veins in the form of adrenaline. Taking them out meant saving human lives. Taking them out would make winning so much easier.

  “Let’s do this.”

  The sword was right. The Tuatha weren’t far. Confident in their power, they’d camped out in the open with only a couple of large trees for cover. I’d expected Summer, but these were Autumn, their clothes brown and deep russet in the firelight.

  They spoke in low voices, sharing a flask between them. A baku lay on the ground with a silver chain wrapped around his neck, the other end tied to a tree. There was a welt on his nose that was still bloody. Wait…I recognized that creature. The small hound the Spring Tuatha had with them. What were Summer Tuatha doing with him?

  The spoils of war.

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nbsp; Beyond the flames was a man, bound and gagged but speaking volumes with his rage-filled eyes.

  It was the man from the pillar—the wiry killer. Karma was a bitch, all right.

  I circled their campsite, shielded by my shadows. They clung to my shoulders like a cape that swirled and whirled around me, hiding me from view. My gaze tracked to the human again. They’d take his head. Put it in a sack. Yes, there was a sack on the other side of the fire next to their other supplies. How many heads did they have? How many would this man’s head take that count to?

  He deserves to die.

  He’s human.

  And some humans deserve to die.

  I couldn’t argue with that. I’d seen what this one had done. I’d felt his lack of compassion. I took another step, and a branch cracked beneath my boot.

  Shit.

  One of the Tuatha raised his head. “Did you hear that?”

  The other searched the shadows, looking straight at me for a long beat, and then shook his head. “Nothing. There is nothing and no one out there.”

  “Summer is close,” the other man said. “But my killing their prince will have slowed them down.”

  “But now they will come for you, my prince. They will want vengeance.”

  They’d killed the Summer prince?

  “This will not sit well with the courts. It was understood that the monarchs were not to be harmed.”

  “Not harmed by the Tuatha or Danaan,” the Autumn prince said. “No one said the humans couldn’t harm them.”

  “You would place the blame with the guard? Pfft, you give them too much credit. No one will believe such a tale.”

  “Do I? You saw the Spring prince and his companions. Slaughtered. Who do you think did that?”

  There was silence as they both dwelled on this.

  I did the math in my head. With the Spring team and the Summer prince out of the game, that left the Autumn and Winter teams at full capacity and the Summer down by one…and then there was the Winter prince…Was he friend or foe?

  Focus. It’s time to attack. Their weapons are on the other side of the fire. We can cut them down before they can arm themselves.

  Yes, they were overconfident. Pathetic, considering they suspected humans had slaughtered the Spring team.

  I drew the sword from its sheath.

  I’m thirsty.

  Yeah, so was I.

  Taking my shadows with me, I attacked.

  It was over in seconds. Too quick. They didn’t see me coming until their throats were gaping at me in bloody lines. I dropped the shadows, emerging fully to root through the Tuatha supplies. I wasn’t making the same mistake as last time. If they had stuff I could use, I’d take it.

  The baku growled, but its eyes were more wary than aggressive. The bound wanker made eager sounds. I glanced his way to see his eyes wide with hope.

  Yeah, like fuck was I helping him. “You let your companions die.” I pulled out an extending spyglass. Nice. “You took a woman’s shirt to save yourself.”

  He stopped trying to speak and simply stared at me.

  My lip curled. “I saw you. I saw what you did. You don’t deserve my help.”

  He began to moan, to try and speak to me.

  Not interested.

  The baku, on the other hand… I held up my hands to the beast and slowly crouched a few feet away.

  “I’m going to let you go, okay?”

  The beast stopped growling.

  “I’m going to cut the chains, and you’re not going to attack me. Do we have a deal?”

  The baku slow-blinked.

  “I’ll take that as a yes.” I raised the sword, ready to bring it down on the chain, but never completed the swing.

  A body hit me from the side, taking me down. I lost my grip on the sword, and then a hand was around my neck, and I couldn’t breathe. My eyes bugged as the Danaan above me crushed my throat slowly. His eyes gleamed in the firelight, fangs on display in a snarl.

  I was going to die.

  The thought galvanized me into action. My nails raked the bastard’s face, thumbs aimed for his eyes. He dodged and increased pressure. I slammed an arm back to the earth, searching frantically for a weapon. My fingers grazed the hilt of my sword.

  “No!” A shadow hit him, swirling around him and pulling him off me.

  I rolled onto my side, clutching my throat, coughing, and gasping for air. Through my tears, I watched Killion tear the Danaan to shreds. Blood misted the night and coated each breath I took. The bound man cried out over and over, his words muffled by his gag, but there was nothing but euphoria singing in my chest as my mentor ended the Danaan’s life.

  I staggered to my feet and grabbed my sword, not that Killion required the assist. He was already done.

  The Danaan was in pieces, and Killion stood before me in all his shadow-form glory, eyes blazing like twin nebulas in his face.

  “You almost died.” His voice was a desperate rasp.

  And then I was crushed to his chest.

  He was hugging me. Crushing me to him as if every atom in his body depended on the contact. It was the most emotion he’d ever shown, and for a moment, my body was stiff and unresponsive in his arms, but then it melted into him, molding to him, craving him with a heat that was violent and unnatural in its intensity.

  Maybe it was the fact that I’d almost died. Maybe it was the fact that I was done denying my feelings. The why didn’t fucking matter. I slid my hands up his back and into his hair. It was silken between my fingers. I pushed up on tiptoe, my cheek sliding against his jaw. I could feel the stubble, but I wanted to feel his mouth, and so I did.

  I claimed it with mine, molding my lips to his. His body tensed, and for a moment, I thought he’d pull away, or turn to smoke, but with a growl of surrender, he kissed me back. His lips were honey, and his tongue was silk in my mouth. We tasted each other, deep and desperate for long seconds, and the connection that had always existed between us bloomed brighter, tighter, stronger until my body was thrumming with it.

  Tears stung my eyes, and nostalgia gripped my chest. Longing ripped through me as if this moment was nothing but the shadow of a memory waiting to be obliterated by the light.

  He broke the kiss, looking down into my face with an expression that made me want to cry for reasons I didn’t understand.

  “We need to get to the skywall,” he said. “It’s not far. I can get you there in a few minutes.”

  The moment was over.

  I nodded. “What took you so long to get to me once the sun went down?”

  “I came as soon as I sensed the sun go down,” he said. “Time moves differently under this dome and it wasn’t easy to get through the wards to this place. In fact, it was almost impossible.”

  It was a warning. “You don’t think you can make it back, do you?”

  “I don’t know. But I’m here now, and I’ll get you as far as I can.”

  It was the most I could ask for.

  I strode over to the baku and brought my sword down on the chain binding it to the tree. It snapped with a clink, and the beast was free. For a moment, it didn’t do anything.

  I backed up, my grip on the sword sure and tight just in case it attacked. “Okay, off you go then.”

  It stood slowly and took a couple of steps back.

  “Go!”

  It turned and ran.

  The man began to babble behind his gag again.

  “What about him?” Killion asked.

  I looked down my nose at the man. “Leave him here.”

  Killion blinked slowly. “Are you sure?”

  He was a bad man. The kind who used his fellow humans as shields, and I had no empathy for the likes of him. “I’m sure.”

  Killion didn’t argue. He scooped me up into his arms and ran with me. We made it to the skywall in less than five minutes. But there was already a door open in the wall, and the earth around it was churned up as if huge moles had burrowed up to explode into the night air.
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  Legs poked out of one of the holes. A human body. I rushed over, grabbed the ankles, and tugged. The legs came out. Just the legs. There was nothing above the hips. That part was gone. Chewed off by whatever had come out of the ground.

  “Oh, fuck.” I let go and stepped away.

  “It seems as if someone opened the door,” Killion said.

  I didn’t have any idea what they’d faced, I was just glad I didn’t have to. “Let’s get out of here before whatever did that comes back.”

  Together, we stepped out of Summer and into Autumn.

  27

  Autumn was a series of orchards filled with moonlight and the crunch of leaves. Winding paths snaked between the many trees and bushes, and dead apples and pears littered the ground. My stomach rumbled. How long since I’d eaten?

  “Stop and recharge,” Killion said. “I’ll keep watch.”

  It was the first words he’d said to me in an hour. His silence was a barrier, preventing me from bringing up the kiss and building the wall between us back up again. Yes, it wasn’t the right time to wonder about his feelings or his intentions, or what us meant, or even if there was an us, but my heart needed to know, even if it wasn’t right now. For now, I’d give him the space and accept the silence because there was so much more at stake.

  The priority was Nina and the weapon, but if I had to pick between those two, then…I hoped it didn’t come to that. My stomach rumbled again, reminding me that food was a current priority.

  I found a boulder and sat down with my pack. The dried fruit bar and the water hit the spot, but my eyes ached for sleep. There was no time for dreamland. If my calculations were correct, I had less than twelve hours to get to the center of this construct. Sleep could wait.

  “We should get moving.” I made to stand, but Killion pressed me back down with a hand on my shoulder.

  “You need to rest. Half an hour, at least. I’ll run ahead and search for the wall.”

  I grabbed his hand or tried to, but my fingers slipped through his like smoke.

  He didn’t want to be touched right now, and that pissed me off.

  I glared up at him. “Why?”