Warrior Fae Princess

by Breene, K. F.

  “Magic will fix you right up. Penny’s on the other side. She can handle this, trust me. If it has to do with magic, that chick can figure it out.” Reagan nodded with confidence, raised her hand, and fisted the air. “But yes, I will get this disease out of the way. And soon, I will find its maker.”

  “Not even you can scrape that out of me, Heir,” the demon rasped, frothy drool sliding down its fangs. “We are bonded, my maker and I. She called me with her body. I have planted my seed within her, as the circle demanded. I could not tell you if I tried.”

  Reagan jerked as if struck. “Good God, that is gross. Luckily, I know a guy that is great at messing around with bonds. Transferring them, forcing them—what have you. I wonder if he knows that your master has a spy in his fold, eh? I wonder what he’ll do to you when he finds out.”

  “Reagan,” Devon said. Roger would want to hear about this conversation, but interesting though it was, Devon couldn’t wait around to listen.

  “Yup, sorry.” Reagan braced, her whole body tense.

  The demon grinned around its fangs. “You will be great one day, Heir. Or you will die.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Let’s go.” Reagan jerked her fist, and the demon haltingly moved out of the way. Reagan stepped aside, but before Devon could go through the portal, she put up her other hand to stop him. Her sword nearly sliced off his nose.

  “Oops, sorry,” she said, sheathing the blade. “Listen to Emery. That guy is about as tough as anyone you’ll meet, and he’s been through hell in the Realm. He has no stake in this game besides paying it forward. You can trust him as your guide.” She nodded, and her gaze fell on Charity. “I hope to meet the rest of the warrior fae one day. I hear they were feared back in the day—they didn’t bow to anyone. My kinda people.” Reagan scanned the tree line where she and Charity had sensed a silent observer. “Now to find the Peeping Tom and force it to a tea party with my new friend here.”

  Devon didn’t watch her march the demon away, nor did he stop to wonder how the hell she could control it. He faced down the portal and took a deep breath.

  “This is probably going to hurt, Charity,” he said. “It might hurt a lot. But just hold on, okay? I’m right here. Once we get through the portal, we’ll be fine. Okay?”

  “Okay,” she said, her voice quavering.

  He held her tightly, refusing to notice the weak grip she had on his neck. Refusing to notice her lack of fire in the face of danger.

  Refusing to notice that the natural inner glow that usually shone so brightly within her was fading.

  “Let’s go,” he said, terror riding high in his chest. “Hurry!”

  * * *

  Charity could barely think through the fog. She could barely see past the haze over her eyes. The weight of her limbs, once so heavy and hard to manage, barely registered. They were nearly completely numb.

  Without warning, or maybe there had been warning, an incredible flash of heat boiled her blood and blistered her skin. Hot needles stabbed her eyes. Sharp points dug into her ears. The strange suck of energy that had been continuous since the battle in the parking lot intensified, sapping what few reserves she had left. Stealing it, and her life force with it.

  She screamed against the onslaught, struggling to get away. Trying to break free.

  “Easy now,” Devon said, his voice miles away. “Push through it. You can get through it.”

  Agony clawed at her insides, fierce and hot. It yanked at her limbs, threatening to pull them out of their joints. Her guts twisted, and then felt like they were being pulled from her body. Acid dribbled across her bones, eating them away.

  “I can’t make it,” she yelled. She didn’t have any strength, not compared to the iron wrapped around her body. “Please, stop. I can’t make it!”

  * * *

  Devon gritted his teeth against her cries of pain. Her words ripped at his heart, but he pushed through the pain.

  “I can’t make it!” She thrashed against him, as weak as a kitten. “It’s killing me!”

  Tears blinded his eyes and fear pushed against his chest, but he kept walking. Kept going. If he didn’t, she would die anyway.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Charity fluttered her eyes, trying to get them open, to see past this darkness. She couldn’t feel her body. She couldn’t feel anything. She floated in a blank, featureless space that part of her realized was the holding room between the living and the dead. The place for those who were too obstinate to move on.

  She didn’t want to go.

  A sob tore through her, but it didn’t manifest. Because crying was only for bodies. Tears only existed with eyes. She didn’t have either of those anymore.

  “Honky-tonk crusted toilets,” she heard, as though through a wind tunnel. A woman’s voice. Familiar, but she couldn’t place it. “She’s in bad shape. Hurry! Run her this way. That goofy-eyed elf might not be able to see us, but if it can feel even half the magic I can, it knows something’s here.”

  “It knows,” a man said, echoing through the darkness. “It just doesn’t know what. They keep their composure until the moment before they strike. It won’t be able to tear through our magic by itself, but if it figures out someone is messing with its eyes, it’ll start searching for us. We need to get out of here.”

  “You sound like you have experience with this.”

  “I have a lot of experience with this. Don’t ask about it—it’ll give you hives,” the man said.

  “Move. Go.”

  Devon!

  Charity wanted to cry out to him, to beg him to save her, as he always seemed to. Her heart ached, the pain of losing him filling her whole world.

  No, not her heart. Not even her person. She didn’t have any of those anymore.

  Her soul.

  The thought of saying goodbye to him now, so soon after they’d found each other, made it feel like her soul was on fire. She couldn’t bear the pain of it. She couldn’t bear to move on to a place he couldn’t follow.

  “Help me,” she cried into the darkness. “Help me! I’m still here! I can hear you. Please!”

  “Crying babies holding lollipops, I can’t—” There were tears behind the woman’s words. “I can’t bear it. Emery, it feels like distress. Intense distress and suffering. Can you feel that?”

  “No, babe. I can’t feel the magic, remember? She’s alive, though. She hasn’t given up. Where there’s a will, there’s a way.”

  “Clichés, yes. You and my mother love clichés.” The woman fell silent, and Charity felt a pulling within her being. Then a pushing. Which should have been impossible without a body. Right? “She needs… She’s lacking…”

  “Words, babe. We need words.”

  “Energy. She needs… She has so much magic. So much magic. More than the last time I met her. It’s like a wildfire raging within her. But she doesn’t have enough energy to sustain it. Reagan had something like this, I think. She suppressed half her magic until she could handle it. This lady—Charity—can’t possibly do that. There is no half. There is just the whole. And that whole is like a fire needing oxygen.”

  “Tell us something we don’t know.”

  Steve!

  Charity tried to take a deep breath, forgetting the separation from her body.

  “There—did you see?” the woman said excitedly. “She is present. She just needs a little help to blossom.”

  “How do we help?” Devon asked, the desperation clear in his voice. Charity felt a deep pang of longing. She missed him. She hadn’t been herself these past few months, forcing him to be better. More. The easy banter they’d enjoyed from the beginning had fallen to the wayside recently. He was always worried she’d randomly explode.

  She was always worried she’d randomly explode.

  She wanted her life back.

  “Help me!” she cried out in the darkness, reaching. Straining to get back. To open her eyes and see the light. “Please!”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Devon kne
lt next to Penny as she looked down on a pale and lifeless Charity.

  “What can I do?” he asked, trying to keep his voice hard and in control. He could barely think for the fear of losing her. Until Charity had slammed into his life, he’d shunned meaningful relationships outside of the pack. He’d invited bitterness to creep inside and stay. She’d woken him up, like a breath of fresh air in a stagnant room. She’d helped him become a better alpha. Her magic, even when painful, felt like a natural part of him. He couldn’t imagine walking through life without her.

  “Okay.” Penny lifted one of her hands, waving fingers in the air, and stared sightlessly down at Charity. Emery watched Penny from the other side of Charity, poised as though ready to move at a moment’s notice. The rest of the pack fanned out in the thick trees, watching for passersby.

  They were a quarter of a mile from the portal, having run as fast as they could to get clear of whatever invisibility magic the dual-mages had erected. Any closer and they’d be too close to that elf sentry if he started to piece things together and went looking for the source of the magic.

  “What are you…” Emery’s eyes flicked from Penny to Devon. “How much do you want her to live?”

  “What kind of a stupid question is that?”

  Devon ignored Steve’s outburst, mostly because he was thinking the same thing. “With everything I have and am.”

  Penny’s luminous eyes lifted, latching on to Devon’s. “You would give your life for hers?”

  “Yes,” he answered immediately. “I’ve tried twice. She keeps saving me.”

  Penny cocked her head, studying Devon. “Interesting. You are driven to rescue each other. I can mimic that in magic, I think.” She looked down at Charity. “If I just…”

  “But should you do that?” Emery hastened to say, putting out his hands to stall Penny.

  “Yes,” Devon said in a tone that brooked no argument. “You should do that. Do whatever it takes. She needs to live.”

  Penny looked up again. “It’ll be a hard road for you.”

  “My life has always been a hard road. Charity makes it worthwhile.”

  A sweet smile crossed Penny’s face. “Let’s hope this isn’t the biggest mistake of your life.”

  Her fingers started to move, weaving something Devon couldn’t see. Emery’s brow furrowed and his eyes roamed the air before returning to Devon. “This will be permanent, what she’s doing. What I’m about to help her do. It’s an energy exchange. If one of you needs energy, you will take from the other. If one of you is dying, and the other doesn’t have the resources to help, you will die together.”

  “She is dying,” Penny said, her hands still moving in a lovely, silent dance. “If I don’t do this, that’s it. It’s over. We all go home and listen to my mother bicker with vampires over how many guests at one time is prudent.”

  “We really shouldn’t be bringing our own lives into his decision, babe,” Emery murmured. Even so, he reached out his hands and started weaving his fingers through the empty air.

  “Do it,” Devon said without hesitation. “Do whatever needs to be done.”

  “His magic is a bonfire among sparks,” Penny mused, as though to herself. “It is so deliciously wild. It’s the song of the forest. The thrill of the hunt. It complements hers perfectly. It’s part of the reason hers has exploded. Why his has exploded. They are greater together than the sum of their parts. Dual-mages…”

  “Don’t try to make sense of it,” Emery told Devon, focused on things Devon couldn’t see, hands still moving. “She’s just figuring it out aloud.”

  Penny smiled, and something warm twinkled in her eyes. She barely flicked her gaze up to Emery. “And he’s making this into a masterpiece.”

  “It’s usually the other way around,” Emery murmured. “But it just so happens I know exactly what she means to him. This is how I pay it forward.”

  Something grabbed Devon by the vitals, way down deep in his person. He clutched at his sternum without thinking.

  “Yes, that’s the spark that ignites your magic,” Penny said. “Take that out, and you can’t change into your animal. You are no longer a shifter. But connect it to Charity’s spark, and no one can take away your ability to change unless they use her magic to do so. But she has the same fail-safe, because of the energy exchange, so it’ll go back and forth until the end of time.”

  “Unless one of you is dying,” Steve said from the sidelines.

  “Yup. Unless that. Then who cares if you shift, am I right?” Penny said.

  “Bedside manner, love,” Emery whispered.

  “Sorry,” she responded, just as softly. “Reagan has grown on me.”

  “We got something coming this way,” Macy called out. “It’s a long way off, but it’s tall and slim and…like…swishing when it walks. It might not be the same elf, but—”

  “It’s the same elf. They would have chosen someone smart for this duty,” Emery said. “Good at solving riddles. We should’ve had Reagan come through. She would’ve been good at figuring out how to hide a body.”

  “You’re thinking of Dizzy and Callie,” Penny said. Devon vaguely remembered those two from the mage battle. A trickle of sweat ran down the side of Penny’s forehead. An invisible fist reached into the very center of Devon, a primal place directly linked with his wolf.

  He gasped or snarled, he couldn’t be sure which, and doubled over, trying to protect his middle. Straining to keep his defensive magic from forcing out his wolf.

  “Yes, right there,” Penny said softly.

  “We gotta go,” Steve said. “It’s definitely the same elf.”

  “Almost…” Penny’s hands moved faster. Emery matched her pace, his face breaking into a sweat as well. “Just about… Yes, Emery. Perfect—”

  Searing pain sliced through Devon before settling into that primal place deep inside of him. His wolf thrashed toward the surface, threatening to take over. His magic blossomed outward, only to pull back inward as energy drained from his body.

  He swayed with dizziness and felt Emery’s large hand on his shoulder.

  “This is really going to suck for you, bro,” Emery said. “But we’re out of time. Those elves can move fast when they want to. Welcome to that hard road Penny talked about.”

  Devon nodded as his energy kept draining. He scooped Charity up into his arms and stood. The blood rushed from his head and his vision swam.

  “Steve, take her,” Devon said, just barely preventing himself from staggering. He should’ve asked Dillon, his beta, or maybe one of the girls, but were-lions excelled at protection and defense turned offense. Steve was Charity’s best bet, even still recovering from his previous injuries. “I’ll need to change. The energy is sapping out of me too quickly.”

  “You got it, boss,” Steve said, leaving the lookout point next to Macy.

  Emery took Steve’s place at the edge of their grouping of trees, looking down the long, wide path toward the portal. He swore. “Yup, it’s onto us. It must be higher up in the chain of command than I’d thought. What the hell has gotten the elves so riled up that they’d send someone important way out here to no man’s land? It doesn’t make sense.”

  Devon bowed, his arms suddenly so tired that he wasn’t sure he could hold Charity up while Steve covered the short distance to take her. But before they could make the exchange, she jolted and sucked in a breath. Her eyes fluttered open. Her gaze found his immediately and filled with tears.

  “Devon!” She struggled to wrap her arms around his neck. “Thank God, Devon! I was… You brought me back.”

  “Penny did,” he said, falling to a knee, barely keeping her off the ground. He kissed her, relief filling his whole being. “Penny and Emery did,” he said against her lips. “You’re going to be okay. You’ll be okay now.”

  His limbs gave out. He half lowered, half dumped Charity onto the ground.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “I got it, boss.” Steve bent quickly and scooped her up,
flaring Devon’s possessiveness. He pushed the primal reaction away and wasted no time changing into his wolf. He’d be stronger in his animal form, both physically and in magic.

  Sights and sounds filled in around him, so much sharper than they’d been. The smell of pine mixed with the sweetness of flowers. The crunch of grass rode the scuff of Emery’s shoe on a rock. An animal in the distance screeched out a warning, alerting others of a stranger in its midst.

  If that stranger was the elf, it wasn’t far away. Emery was right: they needed to get a move on.

  He checked in with his pack, all in human form. They smelled of blood and sweat, most of them still healing and hiding their pain. If they could hide it, they could endure it. They were good to move.

  Through body posturing and a few minimal movements, he got them up on their feet, picking up packs and preparing to go.

  “What’s happening? What’s this…this feeling? It’s…” Charity said, and a surge of her magic slammed into Devon.

  “Devon let me set up a sort of energy share between you two,” Penny explained, but Devon lost the string of words immediately.

  He wobbled where he stood and lowered his head, digesting the changes wrought by the energy share. Her magic didn’t flirt with his like it had in the past—the two were intertwined, his power boosting hers, and hers boosting his. His senses had taken on a keener edge. He could pick out more layers to the smells, hear nuances in that animal’s warning, and feel the fatigue and battle wariness of his pack.

  He could also feel danger winding toward them, finding its way and picking up its pace. And Charity’s magic was pushing against him, too. Impossibly strong and spicy and not right.

  Urgency prompted him to push past his tiredness. He could rest when he was dead.

  He regained his footing, instinctively shoving his magic at Charity, infusing it with the thrill of the hunt, the serenity of silently cutting through the forest, and the victory of a fresh kill.