When the introductions were finished, Queen Darcel, in turn, introduced Kiel, Celesta, Cormack, and Tharell, who they'd made acquaintance with, in the most violent of circumstances. A fey with deep blue hair and a green body jogged into the entry hall, the rocks rising so high that the ceiling appeared black, though this portion of the mound before entering the court was well lit. He casually tossed out his name as Domi, and seemed to be close to Tharell, who did not look exactly like the other royal Sidhes.
An awkward silence followed Domi's appearance and Marcus filled it, “Your guard, Tharell, entered our territory, poisoned us with a magical sleep, after first deceiving us that he was a member of our own region.” He paused for effect. “Then, we were fortunate enough to have one amongst us that possessed enough blood of the fey to use it as a homing device of sorts, and find the nest of fey. When we arrived, your briar nearly had us bleeding to death.” Marcus hated including Jacqueline in any way that was positive or tied to the Singers. Her treason was of the highest order against Julia. Yet, her royal standing had spared her miserable life and Jacqueline's deceit of her true lineage had aided in finding the Rare One. He focused on that rare turn of fortune.
Darcel listened impassively while Marcus gave the history of the last day's events, then said something that was unexpected, “We are not birds.” She chose to reference how Marcus had referred to the fey as a nest and Jacqueline's homing. The greater message appeared lost. Not a good sign.
Jacqueline spoke for the first time, “He understands, Queen Darcel.” Julia knew that Jacqueline was placating the Queen, not defending Marcus.
Darcel looked at her for a protracted moment. “Then why does he speak like he does not?”
“They want the Rare One back,” she answered. Julia's eyes narrowed. Jacqueline would never help her.
“But you do not want that. It is your heart's desire that Julia Caldwell remain here within the bosom of my tender mercy, and that you... return to rule their Region One in her stead.”
Jacqueline had been a busy bee, squealing like a pig and bending the sadist Queen's ear with all their Singer secrets. Julia's heart began to pound in a fierce rhythm inside her chest. She could not stay here. Darcel was a proven torturer. She knew, deep in her heart, that Darcel had only told her the things she wished for Julia to know. And like an iceberg, there was a ton of crap under the surface that she couldn't see. But Julia would see it all if she stayed.
Marcus tensed, insisting, “We must come to an understanding, Queen Darcel.”
“Why?” Queen Darcel asked, her brow cocked.
Marcus seemed to pause there, unsure. “We are a peaceable people.”
Queen Darcel threw her head back and laughed. It sounded like tinkling crystal being shattered, everyone flinched at the horrible music that laugh made. “That is a bald-faced lie. Our intelligence says that you routinely decimate any kiss of vampires that crosses your boundaries.”
It was interesting that they had intelligence on the Singers yet the Singers had thought the fey to be legend only. Marcus had the regret of ignorance heavy on his psyche this day. When they survived this, he could beat himself to death over not knowing that the legend was real. A terrible reality of surprise and strength. Right now, it was a matter of seeing his people through this event alive. His eyes fell to Julia, the Rare One. Without her, all their efforts were for naught. “Yes,” Marcus answered. “We will defend what we must but will not draw first blood.”
“Interesting... you have two vampire in your charge this day.”
Marcus nodded.
“To what end?” she asked like a verbal trap.
Marcus explained, in an extremely succinct way, the drawing of the three, the need for a marriage to unite the groups. Julia cringed at his wording. Finally, he mentioned the soul meld and Darcel laughed again. The grinding against Julia's ears felt like it could draw blood and Jason's fingers curled around her shoulders.
“None of what I have relayed is humorous,” Marcus commented quietly.
“Oh but it is, Singer... it is.” The Queen narrowed her gaze on him and he felt the first stirrings of foreboding. “Firstly, our magick breaks all other magicks which are not of faerie. Such as soul melds,” she began, her distaste for soulmates evident in her tone of voice. “It will not hold against the natural talents within the blood of your group. It cannot cause a shifter to not change if they will it. However, the Sidhe are dominant within faerie and Singers, though they be of pure blood, are not Sidhe. We of the Unseelie are separate from supernaturals who live amongst humankind. We are fey. We are other.”
“Permanently?” Scott asked, his eyes on Julia.
“Soulmates no more,” Queen Darcel replied, intuiting his question.
Julia and Scott stared at each other.
“Wow,” Cyn said. “Just... wow.”
Darcel continued to look at Scott. “I feel your energy, the nature of your relationship with the Rare One is to protect her. And that could continue,” she paused, “here in fairy.”
That wasn't really a choice of returning, Julia thought, knowing things were going to end badly. There was no other way to look at it.
All eyes went to Scott. His gaze switched from the Sidhe warriors to the Queen, then to the small Were pack, Cyn, his father, and finally, the vampire. And always, his eyes glanced at Julia. Because she was under his protection. The soul meld might have been broken, but his role as Combatant had been there since birth, merely waiting for Julia to awaken the circle. Faerie couldn't take that away. He met William's eyes and knew what he saw there. They had both lived too long to not know it when it stared them in the face.
War.
But Scott had to be sure before he owned the bloodshed that was sure to follow. He couldn't kill unless he knew it was for a purpose.
“Julia,” he called out, his voice ringing for her ears alone.
Julia gulped, tears burning the back of her eyelids to hear him say her name without the warmth of the meld, but with the caution of the Combatant. “Yes.” came her trembling reply.
“Do you know this Queen?”
Julia rolled her bottom lip into her mouth, nibbling nervously as she thought about his question carefully. Scott was asking far more than just that one question.
Julia met his eyes. She knew what he asked. “I know that the Queen wants to use me to save her people.”
“How?”
Julia looked at Queen Darcel and saw her fate in those depthless seawater eyes.
“By blood,” Julia replied softly, but her voice carried to all those who were gathered. Scott's decision was made.
Then all hell broke loose.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
War
Julia watched Cormack swing first, a knife in each hand. Though, from Julia's perspective, it was a curved dagger and a long sword. If its tip met the ground, it would be waist high.
He wielded it as if it was light as a feather. The metal bit into flesh effectively, like a stroke of a heated blade through soft butter. He knew who his real enemies were as the court of the Sidhe poured out behind the warriors like flies to an accident scene.
However, this was no accident... he strode toward William, swinging as he moved and Julia had just enough time to yell in warning, “William!” but William anticipated the danger and was already changing shape into a melting pot of black. Feathers sprouted, lifting him towards the twenty foot ceiling. His blood-red eyes took in the Sidhe warrior as he switched direction, going for Delilah next. His gaze refocused from the escaped vampire turned raven, to the female.
She hissed, “Your aura is as blood, Sidhe.”
“And you soon will be covered in it, death bringer,” he responded as he planted his feet wide and swept the arced blade upward, going for a true evisceration and Julia gasped when Delilah disappeared into thin air.
“What in the blue hell?” Jason whispered in shock, pressing Julia against the wall as his facial bones made the wet snapping of breaking apart t
o reform. Julia felt the downy coat of his hair fill the gap between his skin and her fingertips, her hands gripping his forearms. When those grew too large to grasp, she let go. Julia pressed her palms flat against the coolness of the stone wall and could only watch as a shimmering wave of light and movement appeared before she struck. Then Delilah came into being like a falling star captured before them in the murky stillness of the cave, the sound of fighting the only noise. She lunged even as she appeared, latching onto Queen Darcel by the exposed throat. The Queen's shriek of, “Kill the death bringer!” was summarily dispatched into a choked gurgle.
Fangs like delicate tips of white icicles had appeared in Delilah's mouth as her eyes met Julia's when she moved out from behind Jason's body. Delilah was vampire, but she was also part of Julia's people. She was Singer enough to advise, Were enough for the sharpest of senses, and Vampire enough to kill without remorse when the need was strongest.
As she did now.
Julia did what she could, casting her telekinesis like a clumsy net, her skills not fine-honed but enough to cause the Sidhe warriors, Celeste and Domi, to stumble.
But it was enough, the Were advancing from the opposite side in their wolfen form; to keep the Sidhe at bay while Delilah sucked the immortality out of the veins of their ruler.
Julia could feel something old, pressed against her, making her bones ache. “Magic,” she breathed, knowing that the Sidhe of the court were trying to use their magic to kill the Singers, the Were... and the precious vampire who gave them a fighting chance against the Queen's agenda. Julia hadn't known the feel of actual magic, because it was a different flavor from the inborn talents of the Singers. Different than the shifting of the Were and having nothing to do with the undead. It was a fey ability but she could feel it working all around her like the air she breathed.
Delilah's face came away from the neck of Queen Darcel, her lips a bloody circle like a clown's mouth.
The magic intensified into a narrow spear, hurting so badly, in a way- it bordered pleasure for Julia. It burst out like a bubble popped and the air was shattered by it.
But the supernaturals didn't fall.
The queen had been struck down in a pool of blood. Julia looked at the hilt that had landed the killing blow, while Delilah drank at her throat.
It was Rex, the Sidhe who had dared to speak against the Queen, the remnants of his torture by Cormack all over his body in bloody half-healed welts, punctures, and slashes. His long white robe, belted in a braided gilded tie, was now splattered with royal blood that mingled with his own. His eyes met Julia's. “She will meet true death this day, Rare One.”
The magic had gone along with the Queen's life. Julia stood stunned, her troubles over.
Or just beginning.
Jason, Manny, Truman, and Slash, who'd held the other Sidhe, dropped their hands and the warriors, Domi and Celesta, came to Julia, beaten but not defeated. Jason remained slightly in front of her, his features having bled back to his human face. He'd deferred to the rest of the Were pack to keep the Sidhe from hurting her. Jason had sacrificed the part of the battle that would have necessitated him leaving her side.
They knelt before her and the first hot flush of embarrassment washed over Julia in a slick glide of heat. She swallowed it back with an effort, and the green hand of Domi latched onto hers, pulling it down to his mouth, where he kissed it gently. “Thank you, Rare One.”
For what? Julia thought.
Celesta must have seen the question on Julia's face because she answered the question she saw there, “For freeing us.”
There was a rustle of cloth, a whisper of movement that was in Julia's periphery and she turned to face it.
“She must die,” Cormack said and came for her just as a shriek like an animal in the throes of death struck her ears.
Julia realized she was amazingly alone when Jason had stepped back as the fey had bowed at her feet. Scott was now closer and broke for her, changing into the form he had once before when she'd been so close to meeting death up close and personal. But it would be too late.
Much too late. Cormack's rage and intent were etched lines of violence in his beaten and war struck face that was now focused solely on her.
She braced herself, knowing her novice telekinesis wouldn't be fast or accurate enough to stop him before he could act.
And Julia was still mortal. To have survived all this strife and war, to be at the chasm of real leadership, freedom and a decision she could live with- robbed by this Sidhe warrior. She closed her eyes, ready for the blow.
Julia heard the flap before she saw it, felt the wind from them against her face as Cormack's sword whistled above her head in a metallic roar, the metal glinting in the weak torchlight. The Sidhe slid to the left, their eyes on the roof. Scott's enraged face came into view before it was blocked by a pure and perfect darkness. Julia looked up as soft feathers enveloped her body like silken heat. William's raven pressed against her, chest to breast, in a cocoon of down. The profile of his beak lay cold against her cheek.
Julia could feel the sword when it landed. The impact pushed William closer and her gaze locked with his dark crimson eyes, the tip of the blade brushing her chest as it slid through his heart.
The cold steel begged for entry, his body proof against it entering hers.
William's red eyes held so much emotion suspended within the blood of his irises.
So much pain.
Though mainly, that gaze was saying goodbye and... I love you.
I've always loved you.
It was all there like a raw message in the windows to his soul. It made Julia's chest burn and eyes well with tears in a surge of understanding and grief that was truly breath-taking.
Those scarlet eyes fluttered closed and the ebony blanket of feathers slipped away as Cormack's head rolled, the arterial spray from Scott wrenching it from his neck flinging the evidence of his injury against the black walls, the light of the torches hissing on contact.
Julia stood there numbly, covered in William's blood while Delilah gave a delicate hiss and launched on the headless Sidhe warrior even as his hands came to find her body in a macabre embrace. The truly immortal could still live without their head. Truman and Slash ripped his arms to the ground and put their body weight against his.
Delilah drowned in the blood of the royal fey warrior, drinking so much she vomited it around his body and dipped to begin again. Julia watched his head, those glittering obsidian eyes sliding closed... dying.
When the light in them was gone, Julia said, “Stop.” Her voice quaked with the command but she couldn't stand another drop of killing and still want to live.
Delilah pulled away, leaning against the wall in a drunken stupor. Drunk by blood consumption, a potent cocktail of Sidhe royalty.
Julia ignored the horror for the moment, dropping to her knees beside William. His body lay broken and bleeding. Those beautiful gray eyes gone forever. Did she do this? Were her thoughts of separatism and wanting to be only with Jason... somehow, a self-fulfilling prophesy? That if she thought hard enough it would come true? Her knuckles slid across a face gone slack in death, the blood a smooth conduit for her post-mortem caress and she took her trembling hand back against her chest, cradling it.
Julia hung her head, her hair sweeping over William's form on the unforgiving stone and wept. She felt pieces of her heart break away as the tears fell, mixing with her hair, William's blood.
When Julia could lift her head, she looked at Scott and he'd shrunk back into his normal Singer form. Was he next to die a martyr's death? Was it a coincidence of faith that Julia wanted out of the triangle of matrimony she'd thought she was railroaded into? Or had she predetermined this event through some skill she was yet unaware of?
She swiped at her wet cheeks, pushing the strands of hair behind her ears. Julia's head spun with the different branches of her life. Of cause and effect, or predestination and coincidence. Exhausted, she dropped her wet face on William's che
st, his skin going from the normally cool temperature of vampire, to the ice of the truly dead.
Julia barely felt Jason's arms hold her as she cried.
She wept for William, the vampire who'd truly loved her.
Julia wept for them all.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
The Sidhe parted like a great glimmering sea, their long robes, in jewel toned fabrics, swept the cool marble beneath their feet. Julia tried not to dwell on what their hems glided over, the decoration of battle scarred on its surface. Except for Rex, who was also decorated in his Queen's blood.
They moved to let her pass.
Julia walked by habit only, her feet landing one foot at a time in front of her, William's death was a wild and frightening grief she couldn't embrace. Couldn't face. Her captor of the past had become her friend.
Jason and Scott walked beside Julia as she sat at the base of the royal dais, using the former Queen's velvet footstool as a perch. When she faced the fey and her own people, which she felt included the Were and the lone vampire, her eyes began to swim with tears.
Cyn sat beside her. “Jules...” she said, brushing a strand of her soft golden hair behind Julia's ear as she kept her eyes wide so the tears wouldn't fall. “You don't have to say anything,” she said quietly. “Let's just get the hell out of here.” Julia's eyes scanned the expressions of all the expectant fey and Cyn added in a whisper, “Let them clean up their own back yard.” Julia felt her friend's eyes on her and her gaze swung back to Cyn. “We have plenty of fiascos back at the old home turf.”
Of course, Cyn was right; she'd always had a way of summing things up quickly. It wasn't gracefully stated but it was the truth. Sometimes lies were prettier but that's not what Julia needed right now and Cyn knew it.
“No kidding,” Adi mumbled in agreement.
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