This isn’t the first time Fiann’s done something like this.
Freshman year, one of our squad, Bex Buchanan, came out to the whole school. Fiann freaked out, saying Bex was super into her, and she, Fiann, just couldn’t deal. Even though Bex totally liked super-sporty jock girls and Fiann was the farthest thing from that.
Still, Fiann got the whole school in an uproar, made Bex a total pariah.
Is that what she’s going to do to me? And is she suddenly being all cold and mean because she thinks I’m gay, or because I can’t keep up with the squad money-wise—or both?
A deep ache stabs me in the heart. Someday, I’ll find someone I can be myself with. Someone who understands. Tears sting my eyes; my throat’s dry and hurting, but I tuck Glamma’s iron nail beneath the neckline of my minidress and lift my chin.
I won’t cry. I won’t let them see me hurt.
And I’m not going to miss Euphoria’s set.
I take a deep breath and pat the nail where it rests secretly against my skin. Okay, Syl. It’s go-time. I shove the door open. Head held high, I step out into the flashing lights of the club, and bam! run right into someone.
“Steady on.” Strong hands keep me from falling on my butt, and during our awkward two-step, I catch a glimpse of raven-dark hair and sapphire-blue eyes ringed in gold. Her deep chuckle is like rolling thunder.
“I-I’m sorry.” I look up, brushing my red curls out of my face.
Whoa. My poor heart. She’s gorgeous. Her eyes are all intense and glowy as she searches my face. The ache in my chest gets worse—but also, somehow better.
What is happening? I reach out and touch her hand. Where I want to feel skin, I feel the leather of a glove.
Still, a jolt passes between us.
She lingers, her pretty face a bit dazed. She looks from our touching hands back up. “You…”
She feels it too. Whatever it is.
And dear heaven and all the angels, she’s… Wow. She’s something else. High cheekbones, full lips curved into a smile that’s part mischief, part mayhem. Her bronze skin holds an inner glow even in the dim light of the club, and those eyes… When she looks at me, the club, the flashing lights, all the people—everything falls away and there is only the two of us.
“Who are you?” she whispers, and I hear it because she’s leaned in close, so close I can feel her warm breath on my cheek.
“I…” Introduce yourself already! But I’m all tongue-tied, frozen like the world’s biggest dork. My fingers find the strip of skin between her glove and her sleeve. Ohhhh…so warm and silky, and… What the heck are you doing, Syl?
She chuckles again, more rumbly, rolling thunder. “Are you all right?”
Yes. No. Urgggg… I step back, my cheeks on fire. She smells like all the good things in autumn—crisp leaves and harvest moons and sultry bourbon vanilla. Whoa. I’m getting a little swoony. “I-I’m fine. Really. Are you?”
“Yes, but I’d like to…” She swallows hard, seeming almost shy beneath her super-cool exterior. She licks her bottom lip, and I nearly pass out right there. “Will you meet me after the show?”
Did mine ears deceive me? Girl works fast! Plus, I can tell she’s at least a year older than me. “I…” Say something, silly!
“I’m sorry.” She pulls her hand from mine and steps away.
The loss of her touch leaves me cold. Moments from losing her to the crowd, I pluck up my courage. “What’s your name?”
That smile curves her lips like a kept secret. “I’m Euphoria.”
Euphoria. Whaaaaaaaaatttt? Seriously, Syl, only you could carry on an entire freakin conversation with your goth idol and not even recognize her.
But no…there’s something else, some other reason I didn’t recognize her right off the bat. I just can’t put my finger on it. Plus, I’m still swoony.
“I have to go.” She leans in, whispers in my ear, “After?”
I feel like only my heart can answer that question, but before I can even blink, she’s gone. Like gone-gone. One moment she’s in front of me; the next she’s vanished. Poof!
Euphoria. And she wants to see me “after.”
Crazy. This is crazy.
I shade my eyes from the blue-and-red houselights and watch the stage. After about ten minutes, the house music fades away, and the stage goes dark.
A lone silhouette appears there, backlit. It’s her.
Heat races through my body, my hand tingling from her touch. My stomach does a lazy barrel-roll, and those butterflies everyone’s always told me about? Yeah, apparently mine are Olympic gymnasts, because my whole stomach feels like it’s going for the Gold.
Oooookay. Chill out. I touch the iron nail beneath my dress. Gotta thank Glamma for the lucky pendant.
I step out of the bathroom and beeline toward the stage. I feel feverish, mad as hatter and a March hare all rolled into one.
I only know this: I have to see her again.
I’ve always hated crowds, but without another thought, I push my way to the stage.
Toward Euphoria, and toward the “after” that will bring me back to her.
Chapter Two
Rouen
Sleeper-princess,
If you want to live,
Run when you see me
Run when you see me
-“See Me,” Euphoria
After.
That was what I promised her as we stood there holding hands in the dark club. After…
I don’t even know her, the redhead with the summer-storm-grey eyes, but I want to keep that promise. Desperately, dearly.
Oh, Rouen, you’re such a sweet little cinnamon roll, my inner grump chides me.
You wouldn’t know it, though. My poker face is solid, even if my pulse is still racing from her touch as I slip into the backstage area. I nod at the roadies and tech crew as I pass, a don’t-see-the-real-me Glamoury cloaking all my dark Fae features, smoothing my fangs, glowing eyes, and luminous skin over into a mortal seeming.
Into Euphoria.
As disguises go, it’s not the worst. In the mortal realm, Rouen Rivoche, dark Fae princess becomes the goth star Euphoria. Plus, I get to play my violin.
If only the freedom I felt while performing was real. I clench my right hand into a fist.
“Hey, E.” A roadie comes my way, a mic hookup dangling from his fingers, but I wave him off.
I don’t have time for Euphoria-me right now.
My real reason for being here, in the mortal realm, waits in the dressing room at the very back of the 9:30 Club. Though…I’d rather be out on that dance floor, asking the cute redhead her name.
My cheeks burn with a blush, but the hall is thankfully dark.
Good. Dark Fae are supposed to be as cold and grave as the Winter that flows through our veins. It wouldn’t do to show emotion—especially to him.
Agravaine the Huntsman.
Tonight’s show is just a front for his hidden agenda, and I am wrapped up in it, like a fly in a spider’s web—if the spider was utterly infatuated with the fly, that is.
He wouldn’t like knowing I’m crushing hard on a girl I just met.
A mortal girl, at that.
The heat in those stormy eyes, the brush of her skin on mine like a brand. It’s not like me to be so affected by a simple touch, but there was something about this girl, something more than just her pretty face and adorable freckles.
Beneath all that was a fiery fierceness that called to me, deep inside.
Be still, my black heart. You’re smitten, Rouen.
Am not, I grump back even as my mind races. Who is she? I must know. I will find out. After the show. After…
“Hey, Euphoria.” The stage manager passes me on his way to the bar, and I raise an eyebrow to show my attention. “There’s a guy in your dressing room.”
Don’t remind me. There’s no way Agravaine would let me fly solo after the last time. I nearly threw off his Command, nearly saved the fifth sleeper-princess he
sent me to enspell. I nod my thanks to the manager and head on back.
Every footstep that takes me closer to the Huntsman sinks dread into my stomach. I’m tired of being his Huntress, tired of hurting innocent people.
But I have no choice. He holds a Contract of Bone and Blood over me.
Nothing is more binding to a dark Fae. Well, a soul-bond is, but there’s no way in all the burning, blazing hells I’d bind myself to him—or any man—willingly.
I get to the dressing room, the door plastered with a thousand rock band posters fluttering in the breeze from an open door. Mine is on top: Euphoria, glam goth-rock star.
“Rouen?” Agravaine’s gravelly voice rumbles through the door. I’ve been as quiet as a shadow, but he senses me.
Damn Contract!
No choice. I push the door open, and there he is, the Master of the Wild Hunt, lounging on the beat-up sofa amidst amps and instruments, my violin shining on its stand next to him. In the dim lighting, he looks like an ancient pagan god with his flowing white hair, pale skin, his serrated-toothed smile and dead-black shark eyes.
A dark god that demands blood and human sacrifices.
“Rouen.” He smiles jaggedly, the black whorls of Moribund circuitry glittering like a tribal tattoo on his cheek.
Even now, that black-magic circuitry in him calls to its kindred spliced into my right hand. The Moribund. His attempt to infect me, to make me like him.
A dark Circuit Fae.
“Agravaine.” I step into the room, wishing that saying his name three times could banish him like in that old Beetlejuice movie. Agravaine, Agravaine, Agravaine.
Every part of him is casual, his slung-back posture, the oh-so-cool look on his face, the motorcycle jacket hanging off his shoulder, revealing his muscled chest. I swear, he’s posing like he’s some kind of male model. As if looks can make up for what a jackass he is.
Ha. Fat chance, buddy-boy.
And then I notice the real insult. He’s leaning over the beat-up table, toying with the pages to my very private, very much not-for-his-eyes lyric notebook.
I swear, guy takes scumbag to another level.
In two strides, I cross the room and whip my notebook from his hands. Riiiiiiip! A few torn pages flutter to the floor like wounded butterflies. I try not to wince—my special notebook, gah!—as I bend to snatch them up.
I fix him with my cold wintry glare. “Boundaries, pal.” What kind of guy reads a girl’s private lyrics?
Answer: a complete tool.
Agravaine snorts through his nose and preens, his white hair spreading out like the halo of a fallen angel. If angels were creepy stalkers who didn’t respect people’s privacy.
He pins me with those eyes, shark-black, soulless. “Did you find her?”
He means the sixth sleeper-princess. He’s certain she’s close, though I’m not sure why. My every attempt to dowse for fair Fae power has come up empty.
“Well?” Mr Impatient pushes, crossing his arms over his massive chest.
The Contract forces me to answer truthfully, but this time I’m happy to. “No.”
A crease forms between his white brows, his pale face setting into grim lines. “That’s not what I want to hear.”
“We all have wants, Agravaine.” I sling myself into the chair in front of the mirror. Another night, another search for the sleeper-princess. I want an end to it, to all the violence and killing between the dark Fae and the fair Fae, but I’m too smart to say that aloud ever again. “If there’s a sleeper-princess within a hundred miles of this club, I’ll be a rotty Redcap.”
Then again, Redcaps are one of the only dark Fae known to attack their own on occasion. Tempting, if not for the Contract.
He stares at me, and I glare right back.
The Contract forces my obedience. Doesn’t mean I have to be nice to him. Especially since he also made sure I was punished for that one time I did speak out. Trying to tell the dark Fae elders, the arch-Eld, that we should team up with the sleeper-princesses to save our realm was a big no-no.
I’m still paying the price.
“You’re so sure, are you?” Agravaine’s question hangs in the air.
“I am.” I flex my right hand, feeling the pull and stitch of a thousand tiny black-magic circuits spliced into my flesh.
The Moribund.
Foul Circuit Fae magic, it infects me, twisting my personal magic, my gramarye, into something sinister, twisting me. Because of it, I am able to leverage killing magic through technology—like these circuits, like my electric violin.
I was once a dark Fae princess, now I am a Circuit Fae and sluagh, an outcast to my people.
The perfect assassin for a sleeper-princess.
If she were here, I’d have no choice but to destroy her. Agravaine would see to that.
He pushes himself up and paces. He’s so tall, he crosses the tiny dressing room in four strides, turns on his hobnail-booted heel, and stops in front of me. “You wouldn’t be trying to protect this one like you did the last one, would you now?”
You bet your sweet patootie, I would. “Of course not.” Since it hasn’t actually happened yet, I can get away with the lie. Fae Contracts are weird that way.
And for some reason, my mind is awhirl, my thoughts going back to the short redhead, her eyes misty-grey like a summer storm in the morning, her touch a fire that ignited my soul.
She’s no ordinary mortal, that’s for sure.
Maybe she’s a sleeper-princess, Roue. That thought rises unbidden, a quiet suspicion. I shut it down fast. There’s no way I bumped into a sleeper-princess on my way to the ladies’ room at a nightclub.
No. Way.
But even as I try to convince myself of it, I can’t.
She burned so bright. Like Summer, my heart whispers.
“What is it?” Agravaine’s shark-black eyes study my face.
I school my expression and stand up. “Nothing.”
He steps in, using his height to loom over me. His motorcycle jacket slips farther down his left arm, revealing the mass of teeming black Moribund circuits eating up his side, shoulder, carving spirals over his biceps. “It better be nothing.”
“Or what?” I step level with him. No way I’m letting him bully me. My gramarye is more powerful, more destructive than his. And he knows it.
We’re having a grand-old staredown when a knock rings out at the door. “Miss Euphoria,” the stage manager calls, “you’re on in five.”
“Thanks,” I call back, not looking away from Mr Grumpy. “I have to play now.”
He stares a minute longer and then steps aside. The tension in the room actually rises, though. I don’t turn my back on him as I gather up my violin and bow.
“I’ll be in the crowd.” His tone is low, threatening. “Watching.”
“You do that.” I stalk out of the room, down the darkened hallway toward the stage. Already, I hear the cheers, “Euphoria! Euphoria!” He’s hoping my music will draw out the sleeper-princess. Like a rat to the Pied Piper.
I’m hoping I’m right and she’s a million miles away from here.
I step onto the stage, and the stage lights flash and dim, silhouetting me. The house band starts in low, thrumming, and I stand, my bow poised over my violin, looking out over the darkened crowd.
“Euphoria! Euphoria!”
Only in these few moments, when the bow sings sweetly across the strings, when the crowd pitches and undulates, the candy-floss threads of my gramarye binding them, lulling them into euphoria…
Only in these moments am I free.
Free from guilt for the things I have done, the sleeper-princesses I have hurt. Free from the dread that Agravaine will make me do that again.
But I will never be free from him entirely.
Not until you bring him the last sleeper-princess.
I open my eyes and glimpse him. Huntsman that he is, Agravaine slices through the heaving masses, his smile as shark-white as his eyes are shark-black. The mo
rtals will not see his true face.
He’s as good at Glamoury as me.
Over his chalk-white flesh, his serrated teeth, long white hair, the Moribund circuitry that cuts like spiraling tattoos across his left cheek, collarbone, and shoulder, he wears a skin of sleek masculine beauty and charm. The glittering black circuits of the Moribund hidden as much by his personal Glamoury as by the heavy motorcycle jacket he’s sporting.
Despite his protests, Agravaine enjoys some things of the human world—black leather, fast motorcycles, beautiful women. He stops to flirt, though he keeps me in his periphery, his eyes never letting me go.
I know what he really wants.
Fatter chance, that. I’m not wired that way, and all the Moribund circuits in the Dark Faerie realm can’t change me. I glare at him, letting him know I see him watching. His only response is a half-smirk I’d like to punch right off his face. He moves through the crowd, dowsing, searching for the sleeper-princess.
Every show we hope to lure her in. Every show, we fail. Only spilling her blood can keep the hearthstone, the source of magic in the Dark Faerie realm, alive.
Or so Agravaine claims.
As the nights pass us by, as sleeper-princess after sleeper-princess dies, I am less and less convinced.
But I can only do as I am Commanded.
The music rises to a crescendo, and on the downbeat, I draw my bow across the strings. The dulcet strains send the crowd into a frenzy of dancing, gyrating, grinding, losing themselves to the pleasure of movement. The house lights flash over them, nameless, faceless.
Is the sleeper-princess among them?
Her eyes burning hot, her hair like white flame. Even now my dreams of her come back to me, but blurring her image is the mortal girl from the ladies’ room.
I play harder, faster, working myself into a frenzy—to please the crowd and silence my thoughts of the fierce, gorgeous redhead. I don’t have time for this. I have to purge her from my mind. Our strange connection means nothing to me.
Nothing at all.
The sleeper-princess is the only girl I need think of.
Tonight, if our presence doesn’t lure her out, we’ll travel to the nearby city of Richmond. There, we’ll break a circle of iron train tracks—a circle that Agravaine is certain has protected her, shielded her from our dowsing. Once those tracks of iron are no more, our Glamoury and gramarye will work. We’ll be able to locate her.
Derailed: A Prequel Novella Page 2
