Finally Faeling: An Eight Wings Academy Novel: Book Three

by Akeroyd, Serena

  Finally Faeling

  An Eight Wings Academy Novel: Book Three

  Serena Akeroyd

  Copyright © 2019 by Serena Akeroyd

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Created with Vellum

  To Dad. That ending? Boom. :D

  Contents

  Introduction

  1. Riel

  2. Matthew

  3. Seph

  4. Matthew

  5. Daniel

  6. Seph

  7. Matthew

  8. Seph

  9. Riel

  10. Matthew

  11. Riel

  12. Riel

  13. Riel

  14. Riel

  15. Seph

  16. Riel

  Two Decades Later

  Afterword

  Also by Serena Akeroyd

  Introduction

  Dear Readers,

  Finally Faeling is coming to you a little late but so much more the better because of it. This series has really blown me away, not just because you guys love it so much, but also because it's been so out there. Everything has hit me just as much as it has you, and it's been a roller coaster to write. This one is longer than the others, so I'm hoping that you can forgive me the delay in the preorder.

  Now, to get to it...

  You're going to read about an island in the book. It's purposely misspelled. The Johnston Atoll is a series of four teeny-weeny islands located between the Marshall Islands and the Hawaiian Islands. It's misspelled because that tiny piece of land is US territory, but it's basically derelict. No one is gonna know the name of it, not off hand, at any rate. LOL.

  Secondly, I saw in the reviews in the other books that some of you weren't happy about Riel, our Latina, having blonde hair on the front covers. Oh, ye of little faith!!! There's usually a reason to my madness, and you'll find, if you look, tiny clues in all my covers. I always stick true to the character, so in future, if something doesn't add up, look at the cover and find a clue! :D

  Thirdly, and finally, the difference between a meteor and a meteorite. Meteors are what soar overhead, but until they land, until they actually crash into the ground, they're not meteorites. What's the difference between an asteroid and a meteor? Well, meteors come from asteroids. If you want more info, I'll leave that to the science guys: https://spaceplace.nasa.gov/asteroid-or-meteor/en/

  Anyway, that's everything for this time. Thanks so much for reading, for your support, and if you enjoy the book, please consider leaving an honest review. It really does make a difference, not just to me, but for fellow readers like yourselves.

  As always,

  Yours,

  Serena

  xoxo

  One

  Riel

  “Hola, mija.”

  My head was banging, my eyes ached, and my body felt like it had been in a tornado.

  Maybe it had.

  For all I could remember, maybe I’d been in another storm, maybe something had hit me, and this was it.

  The end.

  A tsking sound appeared in my head. “No, mija, no estás muerta.”

  “How would you know I’m not dead?” I rasped, refusing to open my eyes. The bitter sting hurt me badly enough when they were shut, never mind the pain it would cause if I tore them apart to actually use them.

  Think needles down fingernails kind of pain.

  Yeah, that was how bad they were fucking hurting.

  “Because I am dead, mija,” came the amused retort. “I think I’d know.”

  That had me tensing. “Who are you?” I’d already been through way too much this year. After having been visited by my dead abuela in the bathtub, literally twisted away from my Virgo, and plunged through a portal so I could be reunited with my long-lost grandfather, I really didn’t feel like dealing with anything more weird again.

  Seriously, how much was I expected to frickin’ take?

  Maybe death would be Sol-damn easier.

  “Everything you’ve endured was for a reason, and your abuela isn’t dead, child. She never was.”

  No.

  I remembered now.

  She was alive. She’d come out of nowhere to help me with the—

  “The meteor!” The memory of what had happened hit me, and as I remembered the force with which the piece of space rock had collided with my Virgos and me, I surged upright, tore my eyes open, and forced myself into a sitting position. But when I did, I couldn’t see my Virgo, didn’t see the meteor, instead, I stared into a Stygian darkness the likes of which I’d never experienced before.

  Where before there’d been pain, discomfort, and realization, suddenly there was fear.

  The light—there was none.

  None at all.

  I was in a vacuum.

  Breathing quickly became hard. Almost like the lack of air corresponded with the total and utter absence of light. How could there be oxygen in this empty vastness?

  My heart started to pound in great drumbeats that rocked my body and made my chest feel tight, like the dull throbs were too much for my ribcage to contain, and just when panic began to overtake me entirely, a humming sound whispered along the sound waves. It infiltrated me, slipped into my ears, sang through the nerve endings and receptors filtering my brain, and slowly, the tension and fear that had appeared began to disperse.

  The hum morphed into a low pulse that twisted into a song I remembered. It wasn’t at the forefront of my mind, wasn’t even at the back, but buried deep in my memory, yet I recalled it.

  Aruru mi niño, arrurú mi amor.

  Aruru pedazo de mi corazón.

  I blinked. Was this a lullaby?

  The humming of a tune I didn’t know but somehow remembered came to a halt. “Sí, it is,” came the raspy voice again.

  “I-I don’t understand.”

  “You don’t need to, mija. You don’t need to. You just have to listen.”

  My throat felt thick. “First, tell me who you are.”

  A laugh came next. “Can’t you feel it?”

  “Feel what?” I whispered. All I could feel was the oppressive darkness overwhelming me, spilling into everything, seeping into my very bones.

  “Your blood and my blood—our blood.”

  “We’re family?” I sagged with relief.

  “Si, I’m your tatarabuela.”

  My great-great-grandmother.

  Licking my lips, I murmured, “Mi abuela… she lied to me.”

  “She had her reasons. Fate has a way of taking one’s decisions and making them its own.”

  I frowned, hurt and wasted grief twisting inside me. “What do you mean?”

  “My nieta didn’t have it easy, Gabriella. She was dealt many blows, and all to bring you to this moment.”

  My mouth trembled. “Me? What did I do?”

  “Nothing, mija. You did nothing, but it was what you will do that will change everything.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You already said that. You’re not supposed to understand. There is nothing to understand. You just have to do,” she intoned, her voice so calm and knowing that I gritted my teeth.

  Were her words supposed to be reassuring? If it was, it didn’t hit the mark. Hesitantly, I asked, “Do what?” Wasn’t catching a meteor and saving lots of people in Honolulu enough?

  Sheesh, I seriously just wanted to sleep.
<
br />   Then sleep some more.

  And after, fuck. Fuck my Virgos, have them fuck me, and, shit, just be. I didn’t even mind if it wasn’t a happily ever after. Who wanted that, anyway? Talk about boring. I just wanted the ups and downs. The normalcy of it all. Was that so much to ask?

  “I was plagued with the Sight. It was my gift and my curse. When I was your age, I saw my death, and considering my talent, I was surprised I lived until I was old and gray.

  “My passing started and ended in a vision. A dream. I saw a child of our line with wings, I saw her on an island in the middle of the ocean, and I saw her saving millions of lives with no thanks.” A shaky breath rattled from between lips I couldn’t see. “It was a terrifying dream. It followed me throughout the most miserable phases of my life and the happiest, and it never, ever, not in decades of living, changed.”

  “You Saw me stopping the meteor?”

  “Sí, I did. I saw it thousands of times. More times than you could imagine.”

  “W-Why?” I whispered shakily, my body growing still as I tried to understand why that was fated.

  Fated so far in the distant past that my great-great-grandmother had Seen me in her visions.

  “Because you’re one of the few who can bring change.”

  My throat tightened, fear clutching at my windpipe as I processed what she was saying and just how impossible it was. “I can’t be. I’m nobody. Nothing. I’m not even—”

  “Basta! Enough! You are a de Santos del Sol, are you not?”

  “Claro. Of course.”

  A soft chuckle, the exact opposite of the harsh bark that had stopped any further words from spilling from my lips, fell into the depths of the darkness. “The clue is in your name, querida. Sol. Your line is one of the oldest in the world, one of the strongest too. Our power merely grows and grows as our line continues—”

  “Why?” I interrupted, curious.

  “Because we have only one daughter per generation. The magic is never sullied, never spread too thin.” Another chuckle. “Your mother tried, Gaia love her, but she failed. She was destined to fail. You were her greatest accomplishment, and she didn’t even know it.”

  My mouth pursed at that, because she was right. My mother didn’t know it, wouldn’t know it if it bit her on the ass.

  “You are born of two lines, two families, but more than that, you are Sol-forged and Gaia-blessed—”

  “There are many out there like me. My abuelos told me that themselves,” I blurted out.

  “Of course there are, but there are no de Santos del Sol daughters who have the wings of an angel, are there?”

  My eyes narrowed as I strained to see in the lightless darkness. I needed to look upon the woman who was telling me all this, who was trying to pass on my—cue gulp—importance in this matter, but no matter how hard I tried, I saw nothing. There was nothing to see.

  “Why me?” I rattled out.

  “Destinies are complex things, too complex to explain in a single conversation,” she chided. “I’m not here to explain, I’m here to instruct. To tell you what your next move must be.”

  I disregarded that, discarded it like it was trash because that answer was a non-answer if ever I’d heard one. “Just try! Por favor, you say I don’t need to understand, but I have to. I need to. You can’t send me back from wherever the Sol we are without telling me something after changing everything.”

  A sigh soughed into the gloom. “You’re, as they say, witch born, but more importantly, you have Virgo. Your abuelos weren’t wrong. No, witch born Fae aren’t unique, but what is are your Virgo.

  “At no time, none whatsoever, in the past five hundred years, has a witch born Fae been gifted Virgo.

  “The decisions of your ancestors, those living and dead, those born of witches and human and Fae alike, have brought you to this point. You represent every single decision and every single choice your line has made for hundreds of years.

  “That is why. You are us. Walking, breathing, living us. We exist through you, and it is you who will change things. Who will bring power back to us.”

  My mouth worked. “Who is ‘us?’”

  “Why, everyone, of course.” She sighed. “Sol’s stone brings peace, not war, but to connect with it, on the islands our daughter must be.” Before I could butt in to question what that meant, before I could say another word, her voice changed, shifted from lilting notes of amusement to a dark whisper that told me she was no longer my tatarabuela, but the witch. The de Santos del Sol witch who had Seen my present when to her, it had been only a hazy future. “Where Kou morphed into a harbor forged of pearls, she will surge into the air, her wings aloft, her magic at the ready.

  “Gaia’s gift to her will drain the well of her power, but her reward will be worth the loss.

  “She will change, but that change is a catalyst for more than we ever dared hope.

  “The balance to be redressed, Gaia’s Way to overpower Sol’s with his blessing, but only with the second angel of our line.

  “So mote it be.”

  And like that, as soon as the words drifted toward me, the darkness was replaced with a blinding light, and I was tossed out of wherever it was my ancestor had dragged me and back into a world where, somehow, I was a catalyst.

  I wasn’t allowed to rail at a fate I didn’t want, couldn’t scream or freakout or have a meltdown—I wasn’t given a choice. One second I was with her, my dead ancestor, and the next? I was back.

  With them. My Virgo.

  First, I heard their voices, and then, second, as the darkness receded, I saw him. He wasn’t mine, wasn’t someone I knew and he was a danger to us. My wits were muddled, and I wasn’t sure how I knew he was dangerous, just knew that I did. He was in the distance. Miles away, so far away I shouldn’t have been able to see him in the sky, but I did.

  His wings were a beacon.

  He held them aloft as he flew toward us, and they were so bright and sparkled a white in the sunlight that they dazzled me until my eyes stung. I felt them drip with tears as my senses acclimated to the rays of Sol’s sun after that endless, impenetrable darkness I’d just endured.

  For a second, I just tried to figure out the male’s features, tried to reconcile them with someone I knew, but when I continued not recognizing him, every single piece of my being went on red alert.

  I surged upright into a sitting position, and I felt the muted conversation all around me stagger to a halt. My movements were slow, almost like my limbs were wading through oatmeal instead of air, but when I finally managed to point at the enemy in our midst, their attention turned to him and they leaped into the fray.

  Knowing the threat was being dealt with, knowing that, for the moment, we were safe as my Virgo would deal with him, I allowed myself to sink back into unconsciousness.

  “Duerme bien, mija, and do not fear the change. It will be the making of you and the undoing of the Assembly,” a voice whispered in my ear. It didn’t belong to anyone on this realm, but in another.

  My tatarabuela.

  I didn’t even have it in me to whisper my thanks for her reassurance, for the fact she’d brought me back to protect my family from a threat, just slumped on the ground and allowed my males to protect me.

  As they’d been born to.

  ❖

  Daniel

  One second we were in Hawaii, and the next we were elsewhere. It was a bright and sunny place, however, the exact opposite of green and lush. We were surrounded by the bluest ocean, but it was like a concrete jungle. Well, one that was made up of dust too. Dust and sparse green brush that formed an obviously uninhabited and isolated island.

  “Why are we here?” Matthew demanded of Linford.

  Under my breath, I muttered, “When are we here?”

  Seph grunted. “We jumped time too.”

  That made sense. It had been pitch black back in Honolulu. I doubted we’d traveled far, but somehow, it was daytime too.

  “Something went wrong with th
e portal,” Gabriella replied uneasily, and I turned to face my mate’s grandmother. She was watching Linford who, in turn, was staring up at the sky like it held the answers.

  I peered upward also, but my damnable sensitive eyesight worked against me. We’d gone from the dark of night to the brightness of a midsummer day. I’d had no idea Linford could do that, and by the looks of him and his confusion, he hadn’t known he could either.

  “What’s going on?” I rasped, feeling on edge because I could see how damn concerned Linford was. I didn’t like the man, thought he was rude and abrasive, but he was family now and that meant I had to put up with him. Still, from the little time I’d spent with him, I knew he had his poker face down pat.

  After a lifetime as a warrior, a lifetime staving off war crimes and having to deal with the Assembly, it was no small wonder, but his poker face was nonexistent now.

  In fact, he was downright worried. I could see that as easily as I could see the ocean surrounding me. Yeah, that was how small this island was. The sea was all around us in a 360-degree angle.

  “What is it?” Seph demanded, evidently sensing Linford’s distress too.

  “Someone hijacked the portal,” he grated eventually.

  As a troupe, our blades sang as we retrieved our swords from our belts. With them aloft, we moved into a tight triangular formation, each of us having the other’s back while we treaded in a slow circle to gain perspective of all angles.

  The light was working against us, though. It made it difficult to see that far ahead, meaning we were blinded from whoever had hijacked the portal Linford had crafted for our getaway from a Fae battalion.