My eyes ached and stung from just how much the sun glittered, making it seem as though we’d walked from a dark room and out into the yard on a bright summer’s day. Worse still, of course, was the fact that since our eyes were more sensitive than a human’s, capable of seeing farther and with vivid detail, it made the pain more acute as we squinted into the blurring sky above, seeking a threat.
I wasn’t sure whether I was relieved or not that Riel ruptured our focus by moaning, but the instant she did, we broke formation and turned to face her. She’d been slumped on the ground in the same position as when Linford had crafted the portal, but now she was trying to sit up. Her eyes were dazed, her face slack, and her body was limp except for where she was trying to force herself to sit up.
She reminded me of a newborn pup who had no starch to her bones, flopping this way and that. Her eyes flared wide and finally, she managed to shove her arm upright. When she pointed, we twisted, and saw the male. Still dozens of miles away, his arms were aloft, his wings held wide open as he plunged, diving toward us at high speed as though we were a mouse and he an eagle.
The second we spotted him, the second we registered the threat, Riel sank to the ground.
“Go! We can protect her,” Gabriella ground out.
There would be time later to ask Linford what the Sol had gone wrong, but I heard Gabriella’s confusion and irritation too, knew she was just as bewildered by the situation as we were.
He’d said that someone had hijacked the portal, so that meant one of two things. That Linford had forged a portal that had dragged us to this place because he’d sensed someone’s interference. Or, the interference itself had brought us here—dragging us to a location where he could stalk us. I had no way of knowing which was the case, nor did I have any time to figure it out with this bastard intent on a cat-and-mouse chase as he hunted us from above.
Knowing this wasn’t an exercise, well aware this fight would be to the death, I hollered as, wings apart, I surged into the air with my Virgo and troupe brethren beside me. Our war cries merged, forming into a single song that had the soldier staggering midflight.
There was no time to be surprised by his response, no time to even wonder how in Gaia’s name our cries had harmonized like we were a choir, instead, we took advantage.
Yes, we were three-on-one, and yes, Matt and Seph had been fighting since they were children, but I was late to the party—had only picked up a sword when I was fourteen and I’d plagued my mother for lessons until she’d caved in. We’d trained and trained, been instructed on the art of fighting, but we’d never engaged in a real battle. Had never had to sink our swords into another’s gut and end their time on this realm.
Though Sol was the God to seek protection from in time of battle, I didn’t plead with him for his aid. Instead, I sought calm from Gaia, requested her gentle nurturing, and begged her to protect us all for Riel’s sake.
With that prayer whispering in my mind on repeat, we converged on the male. He had two swords in his hands and he wielded them like the expert he was. Looking upon his wings, I felt his age and experience slash at me, for a Fae warrior in his prime was worth ten fledgling troupes.
The blades sang in the air as he whipped them around, his hands circling as he spun them in a wide arc. The motion was one we mimicked as we prepared our wrists for the fight ahead.
For a second, no one moved save for the circling of our hands. We just took the other’s measure. From his whiter than white wings and the faint crinkles around his eyes, I’d already registered that he was in his prime, maybe advancing toward retirement, truth be told, but that didn’t diminish his powers.
Maybe because I was studying him, I saw the arrogant smirk ahead of the others. That faint twist of his lips told me what he was about. Before he could raise his sword, I darted forward, drawing his attention toward me. I stabbed at the air, whispering the tip of the blade near his chest, drawing both of his swords toward mine. When he used his in a scissor motion, the clang of metal against metal made my ears ring, but I felt Seph shift closer, and in a wide arc, batter him from the side with the flat of his sword.
The warrior didn’t even grunt as he dragged his blade against mine to release them, but I dropped mine, letting it fall so I could jab forward, watching as Matt circled the warrior and approached him from the back. He lunged forth and, in a quick flurry of thrusts, had the warrior twisting around to engage us all. I knew the biggest danger here was to ourselves, with five swords in play, we could easily be injured in the melee if we weren’t careful.
Our blades issued haunting cries as they jolted with each clash. The male held us off as we spun around him, turning the warrior in a circle he had no alternative but to follow as we messed with his composure. I wasn’t sure how we knew what to do, not when we’d mostly parried against one another—not having trained as a troupe to fight another since that didn’t happen until after we’d won our first trial—but somehow, we were in sync.
The male wasn’t even sweating, he showed no signs of fatigue, and yet, I could sense his surprise. Each jab he made, each hit he took, he absorbed with slight exasperation, as though he wasn’t sure why he was allowing this to continue. We were weaker than him, less experienced in an art that took decades of warfare to hone, yet we managed to hold him off.
He raised one of his swords and slashed downward. Seph groaned as the blade connected with his body. Twisting to face him, I saw the blood blossoming on his chest, the thick, dark blue liquid blooming through his shirt, almost purple in its hue. That the wound was deep was a given, especially when he cupped his arm against him, holding it pressed to his chest in a protective stance.
The warrior, taking advantage of his first hit, leaped forward, his swords slashing at Seph in an attempt to take him out. Matt, spying this, thrust his blade at the warrior’s swords, knocking him off target. With his attention split in two, I charged forward and, with a move I was starting to think of as my signature, thrust the blade deep into his belly.
As I plunged it all the way to the hilt, the warrior’s wings stopped fluttering. His body tensed, his entire being rejecting what had happened to him, almost as though he couldn’t understand why we had bested him, but best him we had, and in a shameless amount of time considering our youth in the face of his experience.
With a smirk, I withdrew my blade, enjoying his cry of pain since his intent to harm us had been evident. Matt, feeling the bloodlust as well, grabbed the male’s hair and tugged it back. The white-blond locks spilled over Matt’s chest, as did the blood that gurgled from the warrior’s mouth as his body began to shut down from the fatal blow I’d granted him.
“Did you bring us here?” Matt demanded, and I frowned at him.
Of all the questions we could ask the warrior, that was the first he went with?
The warrior’s eyes glazed. “Yes.”
“How?” Seph quizzed, and though he should have been in as bad a state as this male, he evidently wasn’t. He was no longer bracing himself, his wings weren’t stuttering, and the bright blue blood wasn’t seeping through his shirt.
Before I could eye that overlong, I turned back to the male who sputtered out a laugh. “The meteors bring gifts, gifts that are impossible for the imagination to even comprehend. You’ll see.” Another wet gurgle of laughter. “You’ll get the lion’s share, lucky bastar—”
“Charming last words,” I muttered, watching as Matthew released the male’s hair and ceased holding him up.
The warrior’s wings created some drag, but without any movement behind them, they were torn about in the wind as gravity took a firm hold of him. When he plummeted to the ground, his body a distinctly blue splat thanks to the height from which he’d dropped, I eyed him then turned to Seph.
“You’re well?”
He lifted his shirt, revealing a blood-smeared abdomen, but no cut.
I frowned at the sight. “He almost gutted you.” Tucking my sword back in its sheath, I rushed forward and pr
essed a hand against his perfectly healed belly. “How’s that possible?”
Matt’s focus was on the downed male. “He said it himself. The meteors bring gifts.”
“Not even the healers can redress an injury that bad without requiring some time to recover,” I pointed out.
Seph nodded. “I feel like I wasn’t hit.”
“The lion’s share, he said,” Matt murmured, but then he twisted about and looked at the small circle of people who had become kin to us all. “But we all know Riel got most of it.”
“Her magic—”
“Exactly,” I interjected, breaking off Seph’s words. “The net she cast had to have absorbed the majority of it.”
Seph’s jaw tensed. “We can’t lose her.”
“She isn’t dead,” Matt rasped. “She’s the one who warned us about the warrior.”
My brow furrowed. “She was unconscious. How in Sol’s name did she do that?”
Matt’s unease was evident. He rubbed the back of his neck, inadvertently dredging himself in the warrior’s blood as he mumbled, “I don’t know, and I’m not even sure I want to find out.”
Seph blew out a breath. “Me either.” He twisted around and asked, “Where the Sol are we, anyway? Why did he bring us here?”
From this height, we could see the span of the island and it was beyond tiny. There was a long runway and it was dotted on either side with abandoned buildings.
“I could be wrong,” Matt started, “but I read about an atoll in the Pacific. It’s one of a chain of minority islands that’s U.S. territory. I saw a picture once—” He shook his head, reached up to rub his temple, and caused more blood to decorate his skin—he looked like a warrior of old painted in his enemy’s blood. “Johnson Island… maybe? Something like that anyway.”
“Wonder why he brought us here,” I called out, as we began to retreat toward the ground.
“Because it’s nearby?” Seph peered up at the sky above. “The battalion will probably be on its way. We should move.”
Linford, having heard the last of our conversation as we approached our kin, muttered, “My apologies—”
“No need,” Seph rasped. “The warrior admitted to messing with the portal.”
That didn’t soothe Linford. “My portals have never been hijacked before.”
“There’s a first time for everything,” Gabriella murmured. “Let’s hope it’s the last too.” She sucked in a breath. “We need to get her to a bed, Linford.” She reached for his hand. “Take us home, mi amor.”
Linford didn’t reply, just firmed his jaw, clutched his mate’s hand, and that was the last I saw of the island where we’d slain our first prime warrior.
Two
Matthew
The moment we landed after the duel, I knew where we were.
It was fitting, considering Gabriella’s heritage. My grandmother-in-law was a cubana born and bred, and my mate, Riel, had been raised knowing of her heritage without ever having visited the motherland. But when I peered around the area we’d landed, I cocked a brow at the sight of neat rows of crops surrounding us.
“The family holdings,” Linford explained, when he saw me staring at our location. “Cuba.”
I’d been scanning the area not only out of curiosity, but for enemies too, and sensing we were safe, the fight drained out of me and my exhaustion reasserted itself—two portals in one go as well as the jet lag from our journey to Hawaii the other day, and then… everything with the meteor and the battalion. It was a wonder the three of us weren’t swooning around Riel like pussies. While I felt exactly like dropping to my knees, my fatigue didn’t stop me from noticing a few things though.
I was a warrior. Born and bred. Maybe warfare hadn’t forged me, not yet, but it would in time, and until then, I knew my duty to my Virgo mate.
There were no farmhands around, no one tending the soil and keeping the crops as neat as a line of ducklings. From the glint of gold in the dirt, something that was visible all the more thanks to the late hour, I realized this place was magically tended to—undoubtedly by Linford, unless Gabriella had another Fae mate stashed away somewhere.
Since she’d been ‘dead’ for the past nine years, I highly doubted that was the case, but who the Sol knew? She’d already pulled the most epic rabbit out of the hat, so we would find out what else she was capable of soon enough.
Though my body felt like it was caving in on itself after what we’d all been through tonight, instinct had me continuing to scan my environs. There was something in the air that told me this place was under protection of the magical variety, but I wanted to know the lay of the land better.
A small, ramshackle, one-story house sat in the middle of the property, and I figured we were in its yard. In the distance, close at hand, I could see the ocean, which was close enough for a witch with an affinity for water to be at ease, and a great strategic situation for a family of witches who didn’t know if the tide of politics would turn against them.
The scene had me relaxing some more. My woman was as safe as she could be.
For the moment.
We had a battalion of Fae sniffing after us, and battalions led by generals? They were worse than Sol-damned bloodhounds on the scent. Safety was, most definitely, a relative concept at this stage.
“The de Santos del Sol family are farmers?” Dan asked, his brow furrowed, and his voice laced with a fatigue I shared.
I felt like I’d been knocked on the head by the meteor we’d just prevented from connecting with Earth, when, in reality, I’d only helped absorb most of its extraterrestrial radiation.
#lifegoals. Who said the Fae weren’t fans of Instagram?
“We had to eat,” Gabriella retorted, her voice gruff. “Magical food sustains, but it barely nourishes.”
Fast food never did.
I reached up and rubbed the back of my neck as I stared at the hardy plants. “Tobacco or sugarcane?”
Linford huffed out a laugh. “Trust a vil der Soe to know the main Cuban agricultural exports.”
I shrugged, but my grin was wry. “It’s in the blood.” We were warrior caste, but we were also renowned for our financial wizardry. A talent that had nothing to do with magic, just a lot of insight and learning.
I’d been reading boring, dusty tomes about capitalism and the stock market since I was five—old enough to pick up a sword without accidentally slicing my wing off.
Ironically enough, our financial abilities were what had gotten my uncle into shit, and subsequently, had dragged the family kicking and screaming into exile. That’s what happened when you helped a warlord fund a war.
My uncle was a very dumb financial genius, as well as deadly with a blade.
“Tobacco,” Gabriella murmured. “Wish it had been sugarcane.” With a groan, she leaned over and scooped up some dirt, then rubbed it between her fingers. “See how it’s tinged red? Rich in iron.” She grunted. “That’s good for tobacco.”
“Cuban cigars are worth more than sugarcane exports, even if they’re illegal to import into the States.” I eyed the acreage, still surprised by the size of the plantation.
“Forty hectares,” Linford stated, sensing my curiosity.
I nodded in thanks, then snorted when Seph mumbled, “If you’re done discussing our mate’s heritage, she’s stirring.”
Instantly dropping down to my knees, uncaring of the dirt, I crouched over her. The beast inside me wasn’t happy at her lack of consciousness, but equally, I was relieved we were secured and away from the troupes back in Honolulu.
There was the huge mess of Gabriella’s undead state to sort out, but for the moment, I needed to know what was going on with Riel.
Her eyelids were fluttering and her wings, which had retracted the second she’d connected with the ground, popped out once more. The sight of them, fully black, had my eyes widening.
As was the way with our kind, we were born with darker hued wings, and the more they were kissed by the sun, the more the rays
bleached them. She’d only had hers out on display for the past nine or so months, so hers had started to streak with lighter colors, but said streaks of gold were no more. They were black, dense black, with only flecks of gray here and there. Each individual feather was rustling too, shifting like Riel was cold.
“Is she hurting?” I rasped, asking no one in particular, aware that none of us really knew the answer to that.
What we’d just done was unprecedented, and that I wasn’t feeling any of the backlash—aside from a desire to fall into a bed and never leave—told me that she’d taken the full whack of it.
We’d caught a meteor. A fucking meteor. Like it had been slingshotted through space, just waiting for our makeshift catcher’s mitt to call out to the universe, “Strike!”
Riel had concocted some kind of magical net, one that she’d used to harness the meteor. We’d each sliced into our forearms, allowed our blood to strengthen the net, and after, with it safely in our grasp, had brought it down to Earth where we’d been met with Riel’s supposedly dead grandmother and a battalion of Fae troupes who wanted to know where the meteor was…
I blew out a breath and asked, “The kind of radiation she absorbed, that should have killed her. Sol, us.”
“It’s not as the humans would have us believe,” Gabriella mumbled, but her brow was puckered in concern. “The radiation is not negative, but a positive.”
“What do you mean?” Seph questioned, shooting her a look before reverting his attention to Riel, who was still fidgeting in her sleep. It was like a micro-seizure or something, the way she was moving. It had me on edge, no word of a lie.
“Meteorites that fall to Earth and collide with it bring death, but they also bring powers. Every time one crashes into us, it brings us something. A gift from the universe. Sometimes, it’s something major. Virgo, human born Fae, a boost of magic. Sometimes, it’s a new talent. A new means of exploring magic.”
Finally Faeling: An Eight Wings Academy Novel: Book Three Page 2
