by Ciara Graves
I opened my eyes to find I was still alone. I pulled my cell from my sweatshirt pocket and dialed the number for Agent Williams.
“Williams here,” he answered on the second ring.
“There’s been a development,” I said.
“I hope you’re calling to tell me you have all the intel we need to bring him in.”
“Not exactly, but before you bite my face off, there’s been a slight change.” I told him about the fight and Draven’s sudden interest in my rings. “Is there anything about him or this coven you’re not telling me? Especially if it has to do with fae?”
“He’s involved in the fae dust trade.”
“This was different,” I argued. “I’m putting my ass on the line here, Williams. If you know something, you better tell me.”
“Why do you care if he’s interested in fae at all? Not like you’re a full one anymore.”
“Still part, asshole, but thanks for the reminder of how effed up I am.”
The orbs shifted to red sensing my anger.
I tried to contain my irritation. “By the way, I’m going to be gone for a week, but I’ll be sure to pick up the job as soon as I get back.”
“Where are you going? You can’t just leave.”
“I can, and I am. Pretty sure you’ll be fine without me. I suggest you watch your backs. Draven seems to be out for blood again, and it might not just be mine. Not hard for him to figure out who I’m trying to get intel for.”
“Is that a threat?”
“No, it’s a warning, but you can take it however you want. Talk to you when I have something,” I said, then hung up when he started to yell at me. “You know, I hope Draven comes for you, dipshit. Maybe then I won’t have to hear your whining anymore.”
I sat on the bench, closed my eyes, and with the rose in my hand, let my mind wander.
I saw Draven’s evil smile, but it faded away, and then I was with Owen. We were laughing and dancing around the garden, seemingly without a care in the world. One of the few times I was able to put my fears aside and relax.
That image disappeared, too and I saw the darker parts of my life in reverse. The night my training failed me, and I was bitten by a vampire. He’d nearly drained my life when my blood burned him from the inside out.
As he bled out, collapsing on top of me, his blood dripped into the open wounds at my neck and my mouth, turning me.
I’d awoken with a burning throat, fangs, and the sinking feeling that I would never be a true fae again.
I was tainted. Poisoned. No one took me in.
The fae turned from me. The vampires called me a plague.
To this day, I still had no explanation for how I killed that bloodsucker, or any of the others Rudarius set on me.
The rose in my hand crumpled as I squeezed it in my fist, my mind drifting back further to when Macron left me. Then before, to when he trained me to fight. To survive. Trained me to use my fae magic through the rings my mother left behind.
Back and back, my mind drifted, until all I saw was Rudarius’s cruel smile as he tortured me and drained my blood. As he ripped my wings away—
I gasped at the pain and glanced down to find the thorns stabbing into my palm as petals fell to the ground.
Blood pooled in my palm, and I moved my hand around, watching it glide along my skin.
The puncture wounds in my skin mirrored those caused by the fangs of the vampires Rudarius forced to bite me.
My blood was cursed, that was all he ever said. Cursed blood. Though every time he said it, the notion seemed to fill him with glee.
The horrors I saw in my past were beyond measure.
Owen told me he understood, but how could he, when he was never kept in a dungeon for years and years, without the sunlight on his face? Or the ground beneath his bare feet? He’d known love every day of his life. He wanted to save me from the world, from my past, from me.
Except, I didn’t want to be saved. I couldn’t be. I was broken, and there was no fixing me. No going back to a time before all this shit turned my life upside down and inside out.
Closing my bloody hand in a fist so Owen wouldn’t see it, I returned to the house.
He was on the phone in the living room and barely nodded at me as I passed on my way to the bedroom.
I washed the blood as quickly as I could, then splashed water on my mostly healed face.
As the water dripped down my cheeks and chin, a strange vision struck me. One of, not water, but blood, streaking down my skin.
Minnie’s words whispered across my ear as if I was hearing them all over again.
Danger was on the horizon.
My life was about to change forever. Why did I feel a foreboding like a shadow in the back of my mind that whatever was coming would drag me down even lower than I already was?
“Seneca.”
My head snapped around, but I was alone.
Cursing Minnie and Draven for throwing me off my game, I faced the mirror again, falling backward into the wall at the sight waiting for me.
Macron’s aged face looked back at me as he reached out a hand to the glass.
“Seneca, remember. You have to remember.”
“Macron?” Tentatively, I reached for the glass. “Are you… where are you?”
“Time… it’s time… help… you must save them. Save them,” he repeated.
A scream of pain had me flattening my hand to the glass, as if I could reach into the reflection and pull him free.
Then he shimmered out of view and was gone.
“Macron? Don’t do this to me, you old bastard.” I banged my fist on the glass as if that would let me get through to him.
“Seneca?” Owen asked from the doorway. “What are you doing? What’s wrong?”
“Macron. He was in the mirror.”
“You sure you weren’t seeing things?” He reached for the glass, pressing his hand to it, too as if it would magically open for him. “There’s no one here.”
“I saw him,” I insisted. “He was there, looking back at me, reaching for me.”
“Seneca,” he said with a sigh.
“What, huh? What? You think I’m crazy? All this time I thought he just up and left me, but what if he didn’t? What if something happened to him and he’s trapped? I have to find him.”
“How are you going to do that? What did he say to you?”
“He said my name.” I ran my hands all along the mirror, willing for it to show me Macron again. “He told me to save them, but he didn’t say where he was or who to save. Then there was a scream, a woman screaming, and he vanished.”
Owen pulled my hands from the mirror. “Seneca, look at me, Macron isn’t here.”
“How do you know?” I asked loudly. “How?”
“Why would he come to you now after all this time? He’s been gone for several years. What, five? Six? Seven years? He left you, remember?”
“But what if he didn’t?” I repeated.
“This is what I mean about you living in the past. It’s time to let go and move on.”
I clenched my jaw, glaring at the mirror.
He was there, I know he was there. Just like I knew I saw him at the club and heard his voice in the kitchen.
Owen wanting to protect me was not going to change the fact that Macron was alive. He might have been gone for years, and I was ticked at him for leaving without a word, but a nagging voice in the back of my mind said the man who risked his life to save me needed my help.
“Seneca, please, go to bed. You had a long couple of days.”
It wasn’t worth the fight to convince him he was wrong, and I was right.
I gave in and went to lie down as he got changed and eventually snuggled in beside me.
All throughout the night, my eyes remained fixed on the bathroom mirror, waiting for Macron’s face to appear again so I could figure out where he was. And this time, save him.
As we stepped through the portal leading to Valesk, I held tigh
tly to Owen’s hand. I was meeting his family. His entire family and not just meeting them. Oh no, I was staying with them for a week. To say I was worried was a major understatement. I hadn’t slept the night before, as one terrible scenario after another played out on how this vacation would go.
That and I had been on edge hoping to hear Macron’s voice again. See his face. Neither happened.
“If you squeeze my hand any harder, you’re going to break it.”
“Sorry,” I mumbled and loosened my grip. “Can you blame me for being nervous?”
“There’s nothing to be nervous about.”
“Says the guy with the perfect family. I don’t know about this. Can’t we pop in for dinner and stay somewhere else? Never been to Valesk unless it was for a job. Let’s go sightseeing. Be tourists for a week,” I suggested, already knowing the answer was going to be no.
“You’ll relax once you get through the door,” he promised, again. “Trust me.”
“I do, but still.”
The house we walked up to was massive. I wouldn’t say mansion, but it was big enough to hold Owen’s large family.
Whatever the humans seemed to believe Valesk was, it was not dark and scary. It looked pretty much like the human realm, except the days were a bit longer, and there were two suns and three moons. Other than that, it was quite the cheery place.
I squinted up at those two suns now, part of me wishing I had the vampire vulnerability to sunlight, so we could’ve put off this trek for a bit longer. I really needed to learn how to stall better. A lot better.
Owen walked right up to the front door and didn’t even bother knocking. He opened it and stepped inside.
When I began to hesitate, he gave me a gentle tug.
With a groan, I followed.
He set our bag in the entryway and closed the door behind me.
The loud click of the door latching was like a stake to the heart, but somehow, I put a smile on my face.
“We’re here,” he called out.
“Owen?” Hurried steps echoed through the house, and then there was a demon hurrying forward. She held out her arms, and Owen picked his mother up as he kissed her cheek. They chatted excitedly for a moment then he turned her around. “Ah, and this must be Seneca.”
“Hi,” I said awkwardly, holding out my hand. “You have an amazing home here.”
“Thank you, my dear, but in this house, we don’t shake hands,” she said.
I frowned.
Then she broke into a large, warm smile and hugged me. “It’s so good to finally meet you.”
Owen got his smile from his mom, that much was easy to tell. She held me tightly, and all I could do was hug her back.
Owen beamed at me behind her back, as if satisfied his plan would work. Glad to know he was buying my happy smile and didn’t see I was cringing on the inside. His mom was nice enough, that wasn’t the issue. She stepped aside and then his dad was there, then his sisters, each hugging me, the notion that I did not belong fell over me hard. This was not the home I was used to, not since I was a little kid. It was strange to me, and before long, I was fighting the urge to run outside for fresh air to get away from all their smiling faces. Their casual bantering and laughter as they caught up with each other on their lives made me anxious and did nothing to relax me.
I found myself itching for a fight to break up the surreal experience. But Draven never showed up to try and kill me again. Agent Williams didn’t call me. Nor did anyone else, needing my services.
It appeared I was stuck in this overly happy setting for a week with no way out.
Chapter 6
Draven
“No sign of her anywhere in Madwich,” Shane reported. “Think you might’ve scared her off.”
“Even you don’t believe that.” I looked out the window of my chambers. “She must have gone somewhere, is all, but she’ll be back. And when she comes back, I’ll be ready for her.”
“You sure about that? Want a steel breastplate, just in case?”
I hissed at him over my shoulder, but he merely shrugged and went back to drinking blood.
Since my first encounter with Seneca, I’d been healing from the stake to the chest and analyzing every second of our fight. The next time she would not get the upper hand on me. I needed those rings of hers, as well as her blood.
“Taylor mentioned they found two fae,” Shane said from the chair by the fireplace.
“And?”
“They had two rings each, working on distilling the dust from their blood now, to see if they’re usable or not.” Shane was swirling the blood around his goblet when I glanced at him over my shoulder, waiting for the rest of what he was going to say.
“And?” I snarled when he was silent for too long.
“And Lacy sent word to Rudarius. He’s going to be here this evening.”
“Did he happen to say what for? The captured fae? Or the vampires I executed while she was absent?”
“He did not say so could be either. My bet would be the latter.”
I smiled as I watched night fall in.
Helena had been one of Rudarius’s favorites. She certainly had the brains to run this post if he had ever allowed her to, but since I was the son of a master, he believed I was better suited for the role. Good for me, shitty for her, seeing as how she was nothing but dust now.
Rudarius would question me about their loyalty, and I would give him the same story I gave Lacy when she returned and learned of Helena’s death, along with the other two I’d labeled as traitors. I thought she was going to rip my throat out.
Too bad she was really close to Rudarius, or I would have named her too and saved myself some trouble down the road. She was already a problem. If Shane and I were going to have a hope of succeeding with our plans, she would have to go at some point. Killing her would be a joy.
Bells clanged loudly throughout the mansion, and I whipped around. Shane was already on his feet and at the door by the time I reached his side.
“What’s happening?” I called out to the nearest guard, who was pressing his finger to his ear to listen to his comm.
“Fae escaped from the cells,” he told us. “Making his way through the mansion.”
“Armed?” I asked, making for the stairs.
“No. Wait. He just got one of his rings back.”
“Shit! Send everyone to the lower level now! Contain this before he causes any major damage!” I ordered and blurred for the cells.
The main lab where the fae dust was collected was in chaos as vampires frantically worked to save the blood they collected before it was washed away down the drains in the floor.
Broken glass was everywhere.
Several vampires appeared burned.
“He’s armed with his ring!” one of them yelled to me. “Watch your backs!”
“Where is he?” I asked Christian as he sprinted toward me.
“Near the east stairwell and moving fast.”
“Shane, you and Christian, with me. The rest of you, secure the cells and ensure no one else escapes this night or it’ll be your heads!” I warned.
Drawing an iron dagger from my hip—a mistake I made with Seneca, not having one, and would not do so with another fae—I charged toward the east stairwell intent on stopping the fae from escaping.
A scream shattered the night, followed by another, and then an explosion of stone.
I dodged fallen debris from the ceiling, then leapt over two vampires that were missing their heads. Whoever this fae was, I was curious how Taylor managed to capture him if he was this strong.
We turned the corner at the landing and made it to the main level in time to see a barefoot man with dark red hair facing down a line of vampire guards at the front doors.
“Surrender now, and you’ll live,” I told him.
He spun around madly, holding out his left hand toward me, the red ring on it pulsing with fae magic. “So you can drain my blood? No, I think you best let me go.”
<
br /> “You’re not leaving this mansion.”
He glanced around, keeping that infernal ring aimed toward me.
I took a step closer, the dagger ready in my hand.
He staggered backward, weakened from whatever blood the vampires below already drained from him. “Stay back!” He pulled his hand back toward his body, and white light exploded outward.
I fell to the floor, and the wall behind me exploded in bits of sheetrock and brick.
“I’ll kill you all if I must!”
“You can’t,” I hissed as I got to my feet.
A dark smile lit the fae’s face as he lifted his hand over his head toward the ceiling. “How do you care for the sunlight, vampire?”
“Too bad it’s night,” I pointed out.
“Not for me. Not for any royal fae.” He lifted his hand higher, looking up at the ceiling. I wasn’t sure what he was going to do. Blowing a hole in the ceiling and then the roof above would do nothing since, as I told him, it was too dark to harm any of us.
The ring pulsed brighter and a beam of light shot out toward the ceiling.
I waited for the explosion, but there wasn’t one.
Instead, a brightness filled the room, increasing in intensity and heat until it felt like we stood beneath the sun at noon.
Vampires screamed and yelled, diving for cover as the light encompassed everyone.
Shane and Christian collapsed beside me, burying their faces in their hands as they burned.
I crouched low, snarling at the pain and the scent of burning flesh filling my nose.
He was harnessing sunlight with his ring.
This fae was not a normal fae.
Staying low, I crept toward him, cursing each time more of my skin burned away. I crawled, iron dagger in hand, and when I didn’t think I’d be able to bear the pain of my flesh turning to ash any longer, I rammed the dagger into the fae’s shoulder.
He gasped for air, and his arm faltered.
I twisted the dagger and dragged him to the floor, holding him there as the sunlight vanished back into his ring with a loud pop.
“You will regret this,” the fae grunted at me over his shoulder.
