Unwinnable

by May Dawson

  I wondered what it was like for Tyson seeing a ghost who claimed to be his father. Was it a gift? Or did it hurt him? I shifted closer to him, and his hand found the small of my back almost instinctively, as if he drew comfort from my body.

  “He was a good king,” Raura said. “I was just a child when he was killed, but people seem to feel fondly of him. And not just because he must have been better than Turic, almost anyone would be. He had a rakish playboy side,” she cast a glance over Tyson, as if she wondered if he was like his father, “but he was serious about his responsibilities as a king and he loved his people.”

  Tyson nodded, his face a cool, neutral mask that meant feelings were raging beneath the surface.

  “How do you think he came to have friends in our world?” I asked, trying to be delicate, but the effort just made Ty snort a laugh.

  “Fae love to go play tourist in your world,” she said, and just like when she’d alluded to it before, the thought bothered me. “So many novelties. Cable television! Ice cream! Traffic! Shopping malls! Oh, and grocery stores. We all adore grocery stores.”

  I’d never feel safe in the produce section again.

  “I wonder if my mom actually fell in love with Jorden,” Tyson said. “And my father must have known what I was, and yet…”

  “Are you angry Jorden abandoned you?” Raura asked.

  She’d misread the way he trailed off. But the memories Tyson had shared with me played in my mind, of a man who challenged Penn’s father for alpha in order to make sure Ty was safe despite his magic.

  “When I say my father,” Tyson corrected, “I mean the man who raised me. Who died protecting me. He knew what I was…at least, he knew I had some kind of magic.”

  “I always doubted that Turic actually sent men looking for you,” Raura said. “I was surprised when I delved into the records. He really did…. I wonder how they all missed you. Of course, not everyone who was sent came back.”

  “What would have happened if they found me?”

  “What would have happened? Or what should have happened? Because you should have been taken back here to be educated and trained to take your rightful place. Half-Fae are not allowed to live in your world. But I don’t know what my father would have done. I kind of thought he might have found the heir and killed him already.” Raura said.

  Tyson scoffed at that. “My mother might not have appreciated that.”

  “They wouldn’t have given her a choice. You would have been stolen from your bed—and if she woke up, if she resisted, they would’ve left her sleeping forever.”

  “That’s a cute euphemism for murder,” Rafe said.

  “No, that’s how the spell works,” she said. “You don’t think Sleeping Beauty is just a fairy tale, do you?”

  My lips parted, and then I shook my head to clear it. The Fae world was a lot to take in.

  Tyson stopped abruptly. “What do you mean by sleeping forever?”

  “Their heart stops beating, they stop breathing, they seem dead,” she said. “But they’re just in a strange sleep, hard to wake.”

  It must be the same spell she’d used on Silas and me.

  “Does that only happen to Fae?” Ty asked with sudden intensity. “Or could it happen to humans? Could they just sleep like that?”

  It took a second for me to realize that Ty thought maybe his mother had never overdosed. Maybe she had somehow fought off the Fae who tracked them down, so he couldn’t report back, but before that, he had put her under the spell.

  “Ty, no,” I said softly, afraid he’d get his hopes up, but he ignored me, looking to Raura for the answer.

  “Of course it works on humans,” Raura said. “Why?”

  Rafe cursed under his breath, as if he was tracking on why.

  Suddenly a pack of wolves slunk out of the darkness around us.

  “Quick, howl at them and tell them that you’re friends,” Raura said.

  Tyson hastily raised a shield. I breathed a sigh of relief as soon as it was up.

  “You’re making it steadily harder to make a great case for keeping you alive,” Rafe muttered at her. “Are they shifters?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “But nothing lives out here that has a choice. So maybe.”

  From the looks on the wolves’ faces, it did seem like a hungry place.

  The wolves prowled around our shield, but they couldn’t get inside. Still, it made me tense to have a drooling wolf pace along beside me, studying me with glowering eyes.

  “We’re much cuter in our wolf form than they, aren’t we?” I asked no one in particular.

  “We don’t have endless time to wait,” Rafe said in frustration. “We need to move.”

  “You don’t want to kill your furry friends,” she said. “I admire your commitment to a code.”

  I realized her fingers were moving, spinning golden magic, and I’d been distracted by her mouth.

  “Look out,” I shouted, tackling Raura to cut off her magic. The two of us slammed into the ground just as the magic shield around us cracked.

  “Are you crazy?” I demanded as I scrambled off her, taking up a fighting stance. “You’ll die too. None of us have weapons.”

  She flashed me a smile and ran for the wolves. She jumped onto the back of one, that whirled to snap at her and then she was leaping up into the trees, as light and spry as a monkey. Her wings ripped out of her back, shimmering in the dim light as she flew above the canopy.

  “You’ve got terrible taste in friends,” Rafe grumbled as the wolves stalked toward us.

  “She’s not my friend.”

  “If she weren’t your friend, she’d be with Turic right now instead of having the chance to fuck up our plans.” Rafe snapped.

  A wolf leapt at Rafe, and he ducked, raising the pitchfork he carried so that the wolf’s snapping jaws caught the wood, then threw the wolf off him.

  “Sorry, I’m just naïve.” As a wolf leapt at me, Rafe tossed the pitchfork he’d used to me. I caught it out of the air and used it like a bo to slam into the wolf. It let out a startled whine as I knocked it back into the woods.

  “Are you mad about that?” Rafe demanded. “You’re really going to be mad about that? Right now?”

  “Yeah, I really am. You told me to bond with Raura—you sent me to talk to her in the baths, as if we were going to bond over having breasts, and crushes on annoying men, and periods and—do Fae even have periods?”

  Jensen blasted magic at a wolf, knocking him head over heels, and asked, “Am I the only one who did all the assigned reading?”

  “Shut up, Jensen,” Rafe said. His voice came out strained as he fought to maintain control over the wolf he was strangling. “I didn’t send you to talk to her because you’re both girls. I sent you because no one can resist you.”

  “Aww,” I said, ducking under the wolf who leapt at me. His claws grazed my shoulder, but I came up behind him on the other side, and magic crackled across my fingertips. He was already whirling, but when he came back at me, I slammed my magic across his muzzle. He was knocked sideways and stayed down, whining.

  Rafe managed to give me a hard look even as he whirled to face another wolf’s attack, dropping the unconscious one at his feet. “Though I’m starting to wonder if I was right.”

  “Don’t say things you don’t mean just because you’re mad,” Tyson chided.

  “He’s right,” I told Rafe. “You’re getting mean.”

  “I’m getting exasperated,” Rafe said, his teeth gritted as he wrestled another wolf, his powerful arms locked around its throat. “We have one simple mission, and you two are losing your focus.”

  “Raura could be reporting on us to Turic right now. We’ve got to get that shield and get out of here.” Jensen said.

  I dared risk looking away from the prowling wolves to glare at Jensen. He was siding with Rafe?

  “Just because I adore you doesn’t mean I always agree with you,” he said, his tone light.

  I could r
espect that, but I also hated it.

  No matter how much we might all fight, the four of us closed in shoulder to shoulder as we fought the wolves. I used magic to drop another one at my feet, then looked out over the charred forest.

  A dozen unconscious wolves dotted the landscape. There was nothing left to fight.

  The four of us looked around at all the damage we’d caused, and then Rafe said, “Let’s move.”

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  We booked it out of there. Through the darkness of the trees, I glimpsed a marble building up ahead, and we all hurried faster. Torches glowed in front of the building, sending spires of flame and smoke into the air.

  The temple.

  I breathed a sigh of relief. We were almost there. Soon we’d have the shield. And because Raura had betrayed us, we could go back to our world without any misgivings, without having Tyson crowned.

  I glanced at Ty’s face, and he looked deep in thought. A bad feeling crept through my stomach, but as he felt my eyes on him, his gaze suddenly met mine. He threw an arm around my shoulders and winked at me.

  “Does this mean you’ve made up?” Jensen asked.

  Rafe sighed. “Can we not? Can we go the last mile of our mission without baiting each other and talking about our feelings?”

  “Is that a rhetorical question?” Jensen asked. “Because no. Also, it stresses me out when any of you are fighting.”

  “Really?” I asked. “I thought you enjoyed the drama.”

  “Sometimes,” Jensen admitted. “It depends how far it goes.” Those words seemed to be torn from his lips, as if it wasn’t natural for him to say it, and then he added, “You’re like my family. My fucked-up family that I still couldn’t live without.”

  “We’re more than like your family, Jensen,” I promised him.

  He didn’t say anything, his face that blank mask that was so familiar, but his arm slid across my waist and reeled me against his body. He pressed a kiss to the top of my head, squeezing me tight.

  The temple was eerily surrounded by dark trees, and suddenly I realized that two trees bloomed from the roof of the temple itself. The temple’s torch light almost seemed to be swallowed up by the darkness of the forest, even though dawn had finally come, and the sun shone over the grass beyond.

  “I’ve got a bad feeling about this place,” I said softly.

  “There’s got to be some kind of trap or monster or both at the temple,” Tyson agreed. “After all, everything here is trying to kill us.”

  As we reached the doors to the temple, they opened. We all waited tentatively, ready to fight, though we had no real weapons.

  Instead, two beautiful young Fae females in long white gowns and flowers woven in their hair stepped out the door. They looked like visions as they walked gracefully down the marble stairs that led down from the temple doors. The long trains of their dresses whispered over the stairs behind them, and they were so beautiful, I could barely take my eyes off them.

  “Welcome to the last temple of the spring court,” one of them said in a musical voice. “Abandoned by all but the daughters of the temple.”

  I looked to Tyson because I had no idea what we were supposed to say in answer.

  “Thank you,” he said, bowing slightly at the waist.

  Maybe I should’ve been able to come up with that response on my own.

  “What do you want here?” she asked.

  Ty looked to Rafe, and Rafe shrugged.

  “I come seeking the shield of Saint Cain,” Tyson said.

  “That’s one of our most important religious relics,” the second Fae said. “It reminds us of a time when the worlds were all one. It is all we have that carries the magic of those days.”

  “I’ll bring it back,” Tyson said. “I just need to borrow it to set something right in our world.”

  “You must show us that you are worthy,” she said.

  “Oh, here we go,” Rafe said under his breath.

  “Let someone else take the mission this time,” Jensen told Tyson quietly.

  He shook his head. “It’s my kingdom. My responsibility.”

  “We don’t know that any of that is true,” Rafe reminded him.

  “I’m happy to prove myself,” Tyson said to them.

  I chewed my lip, staring around us. I didn’t trust these Fae for some reason, but I couldn’t put my finger on what was wrong. I trusted my instincts, though, so I began to wander around.

  Rafe whistled, and I turned back, giving him a drop-dead look.

  “Don’t wander off,” he mouthed at me. He jerked his jaw toward the women, indicating that he wanted me to listen too.

  “Trust me,” I mouthed back.

  “I do, but sometimes, you get lost!” he mouthed, the movements of his lips exaggerated, as if he wanted to yell at me.

  “Only when I want to,” I mouthed back.

  I continued around the side of the building, wandering through the trees. It felt eerie as the voices faded behind me. There was definitely something amiss.

  Suddenly, another one of the Fae women seemed to materialize right beside me, and I almost tripped as I took a quick step back, trying to put some distance between us.

  “What are you doing here?” she demanded. “You should be with your friends. They’re about to enter the temple.”

  “Are they?” I yanked the quick release straps on my bag, and it tumbled off my shoulders. “Oh, shoot, I’d better get my stuff and catch up.”

  She stared down at me coldly. “I don’t know what any of them see in you, anyway.”

  I’d heard some version of that sentiment from lots of catty bitches, and now I was hearing it in lots of worlds, but right now her words had a little extra gravitas.

  “What do you want with them?” I asked, my fingers working a spell underneath my pack, her gaze still fixed on my face.

  Her beautiful cupid’s bow lips parted, just as I whispered, “Revelare.”

  She just stared at me, beautiful as ever, her lips twisting into a cruel smirk. “You think I’m some kind of monster.”

  “Just because you’re pretty, doesn’t mean you can’t be a monster,” I told her. “Just about every girl on Earth learns that in middle school.”

  From the corner of my eye, I glimpsed the marble building.

  But it was gone. In its place was nothing but a tangle of sticks, surrounding a swampy marsh.

  She leapt on me as I turned back, her long nails flashing claws that breezed dangerously close to my face. Her lips parted in horror as I ducked, putting my shoulder into her stomach, and threw her over my back.

  She crashed through the flimsy construction of sticks that hid the marsh. It was all soundless, she never screamed, and I could’ve doubted I’d really seen that all myself if I didn’t still see the marsh for what it was.

  I raced back toward the guys, bursting into the clearing just in time to see Tyson starting up the stairs of the temple—which were really nothing but stones forming stairs into nothing. The Fae priestesses escorted him with a hand on either arm.

  “It’s not really a temple!” I screamed. “They’re going to hurt Ty!”

  One of them looked over her shoulder at me and flashed a devilish smile. She didn’t think my men would believe me over their own eyes.

  But she didn’t know them.

  Jensen immediately blasted a wall of magic toward them, throwing up a shield around Tyson just as one of the priestesses slammed into Tyson, obviously intent on shoving him off the stairs and into the strange swamp that gurgled below.

  Rafe scooped up a rock the size of his hand and hurled it at the priestess, knocking her backwards into the marsh. She, too, fell silently.

  Tyson turned and tried to run back toward us, but the second priestess somehow took down Ty’s shield. She latched onto him, her arms around his neck, dragging him back as he tried to surge back down the stairs toward us.

  And then suddenly, an arrow struck through the priestess’s chest, and she stu
mbled back. Tyson didn’t expect the sudden loss of tension, and he rolled forward down the stairs, landing with a thump at our feet.

  “Use a reveal spell,” I told Jensen and Rafe, already turning to look for the source of that arrow. “Raura? You might as well come out.”

  The forest remained eerily silent. I added, “I know you just can’t quit us.”

  After a few moments, she strode out of the forest. She carried a bow in one hand, and there was a quiver of arrows over her shoulder.

  “Did you have the weapons the whole time?” Jensen asked. “Because I need that spell.”

  She paused, watching us as if she wasn’t sure what she should do. Tyson sat up and began to roll his shoulders, trying to shake off the pain of tumbling down those rocks.

  “What was that?” I asked.

  “Swamp nymphs,” she said, frowning at the swamp beyond. “They’re the worst. They use illusion magic to draw people into their web, so to speak.”

  “Then what?”

  “They drown you in the muck and eat you. Even the bones.” She said cheerfully. “Well, do you want me to come with you all? You seem like you need the help.”

  I looked at Rafe. He demanded, “What do you want?”

  “Oh, you remain convinced that everything has a cost,” she said lightly. “I can’t possibly be doing something just to be nice.”

  “I’ve met you, Raura,” Rafe said mildly.

  “I’ll tell you what I want,” she said, but her gaze was on Tyson. He was still sitting on the ground, wincing as he felt out his muscles, but he turned to face her as she said slowly, “I want you to promise you won’t just leave us when we need you.”

  “Don’t,” Jensen said sharply. “Making a promise in the Fae—”

  “I won’t,” Tyson interrupted, his gaze troubled as he looked at Raura.

  The ground seemed to rumble under our feet.

  But maybe it was just my imagination.

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  It wasn’t long before we reached the real temple.

  “Is this really it?” I asked Raura.

  She nodded without looking away from the temple, but the look on her face was grim.