Betrayed

by Nancy Corrigan

  “You must return to me so I can finish our bond. Do you promise?”

  “Yes.” The agreement came out of her mouth without thought.

  “Good. I’ll be waiting for you.”

  “Why are you helping me?”

  “Because I broke a promise once. I want to fulfill it.” He brushed his finger over her cheek. “With you.”

  He stepped away from her.

  Fear choked her with the loss of his touch. She grabbed his hand, not wanting to lose the comfort he’d given. “Don’t leave me. I’m scared. I don’t want to be alone.”

  “You’ll never be alone again.” He closed his eyes. “You’re mine.”

  “What do you…?”

  More roars and grunts carried through the night, stopping her a second time.

  “I’ll explain more once you free me.” He took several steps back. “Now, run.”

  “Free you from…?”

  “Our time is up. You must go. Now!” His words came out in a rush, interrupting her a third time.

  “Wait!”

  “Can’t. Remember your vow. You must live for me, no matter what.”

  He disappeared on a puff of sulfur-scented air without answering her question. She scrunched her nose against the pungent odor. It overpowered his lingering scent and churned her gut. Confusion rushed up, but stark terror replaced it before she could process the odd encounter. The man who’d attacked her mom stepped from the woods. Blood covered his hands and shirt.

  She screamed a third time and backed up.

  “Don’t run from me, Harley.” He held up his hands in a placating gesture. “I’m the one you’ve been waiting for. Didn’t they tell you I was coming?”

  His question froze her in place. “Who?”

  He grinned, showing off his bloodstained, pointy teeth. “The angels, of course.”

  More flashes from her childhood dreams danced through her mind—majestic buildings, puffy white clouds, and the heart-stopping, beautiful faces of men who’d always wiped away her tears and sang of eternal love.

  No. Can’t be. She didn’t want to believe it. “Angels?”

  He dipped his head. A look of reverence chased the evil glint from his eyes. “Yes, angels. They’ve been watching over your soul for a millennium. It’s finally time for you to accept your heritage.”

  His words mirrored those spoken in her dreams. “Which is?”

  “You’re one of us. The strongest of all.”

  “You’re a little monster, Harley.” Her mom’s voice echoed in Harley’s head. “But you need to be a good girl. Can you do that for me? Be a good girl?”

  Her stomach dropped. She shook her head. “No. I’m not one of you.”

  “Yes, you are.” He held his hand out to her. “Come here, and I’ll help you unleash the power you hold.”

  She glanced from where blood dripped from his pointed nails to his face. She couldn’t be like him. He was…

  “You’re a fairy.” That was who her ghost man had warned about in those brief seconds he’d kissed her—the Unseelie Fairy Court. Her ghost hero hunted them and kept the world free of their tainted influence.

  “I’m not a fairy. You are. And soon”—he swept his lust-hazed, hungry gaze over her—“you’ll be mine.”

  “No.” She didn’t want to be a fairy. They were evil, corrupted…

  Bad.

  “You need to be a good. Can you do that?”

  Her mother’s words morphed into screams that demanded retribution. Harley couldn’t deliver the revenge her family deserved. She had to be good… She had to remain a Seelie, a good fairy. That was what her mom had meant. There was only one thing left to do.

  She pivoted on her heel and ran, leaving everything behind.

  Chapter Two

  Present Day

  Harley tugged her hood up against the chilly October wind and pressed her frame into the slight indentation made by the recessed metal door. Chin tucked, she scanned the narrow road between her apartment building and the bar next to it. The flickering bulb a few feet from where she stood cast a strobe effect over the darkened alley. The chaotic aspect of it appealed to her darker nature. The fact bothered her, yet she couldn’t deny it, not when the taint she carried flared in response to it.

  She ignored the urge to embrace the bad side of her persona and continued her inspection. Caution and awareness had kept her alive in the face of a lifetime of danger. She refused to take chances. Lives depended on it—hers and those around her.

  The Dumpster and the discarded stack of cardboard next to it looked no different than they had before she’d made her hurried trek to the corner drugstore. The curtains in the windows above her remained drawn. Music blared from the tenants on the third floor, and the lovers on the second level still argued about who should do the dishes. Harley cocked her head and listened for other clues, drawing on her nonhuman side to feed her details.

  Rats skittered along the ground and around the overflowing, rancid garbage. The small animals didn’t bother her nor did the cockroaches that infested the shithole building she called home. What did were the monsters she knew walked among the humans, feeding off their fear, pain, and deaths. Those were the ones who caused her to wake up screaming in terror and kept her constantly on guard. They searched for her. Always, no matter where she went. She could fuel them. Make them unstoppable.

  Over her dead body. She clenched her jaw.

  A shadow loomed at the mouth of the alleyway. Harley held her breath and tightened her grip on the six-inch blade she held against her thigh. A heartbeat passed before a rattly cough reached her ears along with the drag of her elderly neighbor’s cane over the macadam. A smaller shape joined the looming one inching its way across the entrance. Both shadows danced in the light flickering over the ground, distorting their images until they reflected the hunched shape of a sluagh, the foot soldiers of the fairies.

  Not real. It’s not real. Just my fears haunting me.

  The words helped alleviate the trembling in her body. Still, she waited for the man and his poodle to continue on their nightly path before easing away from the hidey-hole she’d occupied.

  Forty-five minutes, that was all she’d been gone. She normally didn’t wander outside at night as there was more of a chance to stumble over a redcap, a human who’d sold his soul to the Unseelie Court for immortality and power, but Bea’s pain medicine had run out. Harley hated to make her wheelchair-bound neighbor wait until the store opened on Monday.

  Besides, Harley hadn’t lived here long enough for the fairies’ creatures to pick up on her trail. The iron in the buildings helped mask her presence, and in the morning, she was skipping town. At least, that was the reasoning she was clinging too. She couldn’t wait to get out of here.

  Her older brother, Ian, was getting married. He’d begged her to come home and share in his happiness. The idea of going back to the house where the rest of their family died chilled her. For Ian, she’d do it. He was all she had left. Besides, she had a promise to keep. Two promises, actually. She wanted to fulfill them before it was too late, and she stopped caring about promises.

  One more sweep of the area, and she darted toward the front of her building. She hopped the couple of steps, reached for the door, and froze with her hand on the tarnished knob. The dark taint living inside her pulsed with life. The flare announced the presence of her kind, a warning system she’d come to rely on.

  She glanced over her shoulder. The black eyes of a redcap stared back at her. Good-looking and tall with a linebacker’s build, Raul could’ve passed for any number of twentysomethings wandering the town, but he wasn’t merely an attractive guy. He was the stuff of nightmares.

  Then again, so was she. She shrugged off the thought and focused on Raul, looking for a weakness to exploit and finding none.

  While she fought temptation, he embraced it. If the flush to his cheeks was any indication, he’d recently soaked the gauze-like material he had wrapped around his skull, his tie
to his fairy master, with the blood of his latest victim. She couldn’t tell for certain, though. A black baseball cap infused with fairy magic hid the blood-soaked cloth.

  A smile tugged at his mouth. He leaned his big body against the lamppost and slipped his thumbs in his front pockets. His nonchalant stance quickened her breath. She faced him and twisted her hand to reveal the obsidian blade she carried.

  Laughter shook his chest. She fought the trembling in her hand at his dismissal of the only weapon that would kill him and waited for him to make a move.

  They’d acted the same scene out for years, ever since he’d killed her mother. Only once in all that time had he ever captured Harley. Most of their encounters mimicked a cat-and-mouse game where he always let her get away. One day he wouldn’t. She knew it in her soul. Her time was running out, in more ways than one.

  He glanced from her face to the window above her. His grin widened into a sneer, showing off a mouthful of pointy, razor-sharp teeth. Her heart skipped a beat before pounding wildly.

  No, please no.

  Not needing the confirmation but unable to stop herself, she inhaled and caught the stench of death seeping out from under the door behind her. A tremor racked her frame. No hiding it this time. She trembled while Raul’s deep laughter drowned out the sounds spilling from the bar next door.

  Hatred grew and stirred the taint she carried. The desire to give in to it warred with the knowledge that doing so was exactly what Raul wanted. Each time she embraced her rage, it opened her up to the chaotic power of the world around her and fed the living evil attached to her soul. The dark stain grew, ate away at her insides, and sickened her. It was slowly turning her into a monster, forcing her to embrace her heritage.

  Making her Unseelie.

  But not today. She wouldn’t let it happen.

  She locked her knees and met his mocking gaze with a derisive one of her own. Minutes passed while she held herself in check, but a scream from somewhere inside her apartment building broke their silent battle.

  Raul winked at her and ambled away as if he didn’t have a care in the world. No chase. She didn’t know if she should be glad with the turn of events or wary. She tracked his lumbering frame with her gaze until he turned the corner.

  With her hand still tightened around the knob, she twisted it and flung the door open. The small entryway split into a narrow stairwell and an equally cramped hallway. She rushed up the stairs, following the anguished cries. More screams added to the mix. She skidded around the corner and pushed against the shoulder of the college kid from the floor above. He stumbled into the wall with her shove but flung out an arm, stopping her from getting past him.

  “Stay back, Harley.” He swallowed hard. “Ms. Erville was murdered. Bastard freaking mutilated her. It’s not something you want to see.”

  She nodded in acknowledgment of his warning but scooted under his arm and ran the last few feet. The open door revealed a sight she’d seen too many times over her life. Her gut rolled. She choked on the bile burning her esophagus. No matter how many times she’d seen Raul’s handiwork, it always affected her the same way.

  She cupped her hand over her mouth and swept her gaze over the scene. Blood coated everything. The walls, ceiling, and furniture were dotted in red, but most of the liquid soaked the tan carpet around the tipped wheelchair. Harley forced her gaze from the dark stain spreading out from the chair to the body slumped over the armrest.

  Bea’s tongueless mouth hung open, and the pinkie of her right hand was gone. A gash cut across her thick throat while more slashes decorated her arms and legs. Eyes wide, she stared vacantly, but Harley felt the weight of her empty gaze. The accusation in it cut at her, left her with yet another sin to carry and another memory to haunt her dreams. She accepted it, exactly as she had the last time she’d seen a similar corpse and the one before that. Each and every murder Raul committed was her fault.

  He followed and tormented her by killing those close to her—friends, neighbors, people who’d said hello to her.

  Harley hated the fact she endangered everyone around her, hated the bastards who sought her, and hated herself. She’d welcome death, but she couldn’t embrace it.

  Words had power, and she’d promised to live—no matter what.

  Chapter Three

  “Wake up, lady.”

  Someone shook her. Harley stifled a scream and automatically reached for her blade. She froze with her fingers wrapped around the hilt and blinked hard against the bright sun. Confused brown eyes focused on her. Awareness returned. The cabbie. She slid the dagger back into her boot.

  “Hey, sorry to startle you, but we’re here.”

  “Yes, yes, thank you.” Harley glanced out the window. The Callahan estate loomed before her, the place where her living hell had begun and the one she’d avoided for nine years.

  She glanced away before the sight of the mansion sent her into a panic attack. In an effort to delay the inevitable, she adjusted the beanie she wore, shoving the strands of her hair that had slipped free back under the knit fabric. More spilled out. She cursed, yanked the cap off and dropped it in her lap. With trembling hands, she twisted the length of her hair and carefully stretched the hat over her piled tresses, hiding the platinum curls that always drew looks from men and women alike.

  Unable to linger longer, she clutched her backpack, grabbed the bag of food she’d picked up in town, and slipped out of the cab. Her gaze drifted to the butterfly garden. How many hours had she spent in the spot reading as a teenager or playing as a child without her blue-eyed ghost man appearing to her?

  Couldn’t he have clued her in on her tainted heritage earlier? She could’ve run away and saved her family or committed suicide and saved herself. No. He’d waited until Hell had reigned in her backyard before confirming what her mom had told her all along—she was a monster.

  And someday she’d surround herself with redcaps and their army of the walking dead, the sluaghs, killing innocents like the night her family was slaughtered. Or maybe she’d accept a crown and rule over all as the Queen of the Unseelie Court. She could have everything—the world at her fingertips.

  Just like the angels in her dreams promised.

  No. She shook her head. Coming here was a mistake. She only had in an effort to find some sort of closure. Harley wanted to sit in front of her mom’s portrait and tell her she’d done her best to remain Seelie before she actually lost the battle for her soul and broke her promise.

  Harley didn’t need to stay in the house to do that. She could say her piece, then leave. And the promise of returning to her ghost man? Well, she was here, so that settled the score.

  Her thoughts eased the churning in her gut. She turned to tell the cabbie to wait for her, but the cab peeled away, kicking dust in her face, before she could get a word out. She choked on the gritty air and faced the vacant mansion that stood as a tribute to her fallen family members. Neither she nor Ian, who’d escaped death since he’d been away at college that night, had been able to bring themselves to sell it.

  “Guess I’m staying.”

  She made her way to the entrance and slipped the key into the lock. The click resounded in her ears, and a screech accompanied her push of the heavy oak door. Dust and stale air whooshed around her. She blinked rapidly to clear her blurry vision and swept her gaze over the entryway. Empty. She let her nonhuman senses flare. Only the sounds of scurrying mice reached her ears. A sigh of relief escaped. She shuffled inside and headed toward the living room.

  The chiming of the grandfather clock stopped her. Noon. The memories she’d hoped to keep buried rushed back with the clang, ding, clang of the pendulum.

  A slideshow of monsters and death flashed through her mind. The screams of her family mixed with the roars and grunts of the sluaghs who’d killed them.

  Harley tugged at her hair, dislodging her cap. “No, dammit, no!”

  “You’re alive.”

  She froze. The low, gravelly voice of her ghost m
an caressed her as tangibly as it had all those years ago. She dropped her hands. Hovering inches away were the eyes she’d seen in her dreams every night since.

  “Oh God.” She scrambled back and tripped over her bag, landing on her ass.

  “Be calm. You’re safe.”

  Peace settled over her as if he’d taken her anxiety away with those words. Still, she inched away from his disembodied eyes. Caution had kept her alive in the face of a lifetime of evil. It didn’t matter if she’d felt as if she’d known him for ages. She’d learned years ago, nothing was as it seemed. Those with the ability to use glamour, the fairies’ magic, could create illusions out of thin air.

  She settled on bent legs and studied the apparition for a clue as to whether he was a figment of her imagination or not. The oval surrounding the spectral display showed tan skin, ridiculously long lashes and dark eyebrows. Her pulse kicked up. Excitement, desire, fear—she wasn’t sure what caused it. She only knew she couldn’t look away.

  “You.” She swallowed hard. She still couldn’t believe her eyes. Couldn’t deny the sight either. “It’s you.”

  “Yes. It is.”

  A long moment passed where they held each other’s gazes. So many times, she’d fantasized about what she would say or do if she ever reconnected with him. None of the scenarios fit the pregnant silence stretching between them. She let those silly fantasies slip through her fingers and asked the first question that came to her mind.

  “What’s your name?” It had always bothered her not having one.

  “I am Calan. Yours?”

  Calan. She let his name settle over her heart. “Mine’s Harley.”

  “Harley.” Her name spoken in his deep voice sounded sexy, something she never thought her unusual name could be.

  Finally, he released a shaky breath she felt skim over her cheek. She pressed her palm to the sensitive skin to hold the warmth close.

  “You never returned to me, Harley.”