Finally Faeling: An Eight Wings Academy Novel: Book Three

by Akeroyd, Serena

  My eyes narrowed at her. “You’ve been spying on me.”

  “For years,” she said with no shame. “And you’ve needed my aid, our protection. And yet, when it came down to it, though you had more reason than most to be scared, you dove straight into the fray and caught a meteor like you were catching a ball, mija.” She shook her head. “This still makes no sense to me. Why did you do that?”

  “It called to me.”

  “In what sense?”

  “I knew it was coming, felt it. Something wasn’t right, and I knew I could stop it.”

  “How?” she pressed, but I got the feeling her question was aimed inward.

  I thought about those moments before I’d known about the meteor, and knew that the joining with my Virgo had helped open my mind to something I’d not sensed before.

  “Before we initiated the Rut,” I began carefully, “I didn’t sense anything. I was on edge, but I can’t say why.”

  “I knew you were supposed to be there. The portal bringing you to Honolulu was foretold, even if the hows and whys weren’t. But this?” She shook her head. “This wasn’t foretold.”

  “No Seer gets a true, all-encompassing vision,” I replied easily, my gaze on her as I stepped farther into the kitchen and took a seat. “You left us.”

  Her mouth twisted. “I had no choice.”

  “There’s always a choice.”

  “My lies had come home to roost, querida. I had no choice but to erase myself from the scene. You needed outside help, and yet, your mother was in the dark. I couldn’t tell her, not at that moment. Things had to ride out, otherwise the AFata would have come and taken you away.

  “They would have drawn you into their cause, and I wasn’t about to let you be tarred and feathered for my sins.”

  “What was that thing with the bath? Why did you visit me that way?” I rasped, pleating my fingers together and staring at my chipped nail polish with the nails that were tipped with some weird shiny foil stuff. With all my other changes, ones that had my Virgo gaping at me a little, I had to wonder when the last time I’d just sat down and painted my nails? The normal act seemed so childish now when I was faced with…

  I grunted.

  I didn’t know what I was faced with. Not after what my men had done back in the bedroom, and not after what I’d done too.

  Still, when she answered, I was glad she realized I wanted more than just a ‘why’ but a ‘how’ too.

  “I needed you to realize what the boys were to you. There was no time for you not to take them and start the Claiming process. As to the other ‘why,’ I’ve always had an affinity with water—that was why I used that medium. The only other way to visit you was in dreams, and that skill was never my forte.”

  “Why are my Virgo so important?” I shook my head, not understanding her logic. “You didn’t Claim yours.”

  “You were fated to Claim yours,” she countered. “I didn’t lie about it all. Just mixed things up. And look how things panned out? If Noa and I had stayed together, if I had Claimed them, then how could Seph be your Virgo?”

  My mouth tightened at that. Being without Seph? Never going to happen. Just the prospect of him not being in my life was an agony beyond compare. I mean, I guessed I’d have had a different Virgo, but it wouldn’t have been him, and I needed him to be the exact way he was. Dan to make my mood bubble, Seph to ground me, and Matthew to ask the questions that the answers of which would keep us safe.

  Because I couldn’t deny she was right on that score, I demanded instead, “Why couldn’t you tell me the truth? I’d have understood.”

  “Because the truth wasn’t something you could handle. Some things need to be learned when the dice fall.”

  I blinked at her. “That’s BS.”

  She narrowed her eyes at me. “BS it might be, but I’m your abuela and I won’t have you talking to me that way.”

  “You can’t pull that card on me. You’ve been dead for nine years. You’re a memory at this moment, and you’ve just come back into my life, lied to me about everything, and think you can pick up the pieces and demand to be reinstated as, what? My matriarch?” I scoffed at her, aware I was pushing things.

  Each line had a matriarch or a patriarch, depending on how the magic fell in each family. They commanded respect and were the head of the line. My mother currently held that position… sort of, seeing as Gabriella wasn’t technically dead.

  My grandmother gritted her teeth and muttered, “So obstinada.”

  “Exactly like you raised me to be,” I snapped.

  She sucked down a breath but her mouth twisted in a wry smile. “Perhaps. We must talk, Gabriella. Not about the past, but about the future.” She reached out and grabbed my hand, and even though I was mad at her, I slipped my fingers through hers and clung to her. She was safety, a line of normalcy in a world that had suddenly gone nuts.

  I needed my abuela just as I had when I was seven and my magic wouldn’t behave like my mama wanted it to.

  She twisted my hand around and stared at my nails. “This is new.” She tugged, with her spare hand, at one of my new blonde curls too. “And this. As well as this.” She cupped my chin, tilted my head back and stared at my eyes. A shake of her head said it all. “The magic manifests in many ways.”

  Nodding, I gazed at the foil-tipped nails that were half-metal. It was a strange feeling, one that was only augmented as she raked her fingertips along the edges.

  “Metal.”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know.” How could I? Below those gilt tips, where the white crescent moons lay, there were still the remnants of my last manicure, and the contrast made my nails look like some crazy form of art. The kind of shit you saw on Instagram that went viral.

  She pursed her lips, her focus on the tips. “What you did will change you in ways that you can’t foresee. And I’m not just talking physically either. This is just the beginning.”

  I managed to answer calmly, even though everything inside me was roiled up. “I know.”

  “You can’t know.”

  It was my turn to blow out a breath. “I can. I just had a show in my bedroom.”

  “What kind of show?”

  With my free hand, I repeated the spell that I’d cast in front of my Virgo. Not that it was a spell, per se, more of a desire. But, unlike before when desires were just fervent wishes, this one was realized. When the daisy lay on my open palm, my grandmother hissed out a breath, and she slammed into the chair’s backrest.

  “Cristo.”

  I gulped, because that about summed it up.

  Magic could do many things, but bring life? Nope. Bring death? Nope. It could do no ill either. There was no bad magic, only the pure, elemental kind that called upon what Gaia gave us in abundance.

  “When did you learn you could do this?”

  “I woke up and felt different. I cast a few spells and…” I shrugged.

  “What made you call upon a flower?” she queried, her hand reaching out so she could pick up the daisy. As she stared at it, I thought about the moments that had followed my wakening.

  Two of my men had been there. I’d watched them sleep for a while, and even though something inside me had felt rested, another part had been tense, on edge. Waiting.

  For the other shoe to drop.

  Those minutes after my grandmother had grabbed a firm hold of the meteor had flooded my memory, as had thoughts of what my grandfather had told me.

  “I guess I was testing my limits.”

  “Why try to bring something to life?”

  “Because I wanted to rip the bedroom apart.”

  My words had her growing still. “You wanted to destroy?”

  “Yes.” Mouth dry, I thought about those crazy seconds where my skin had felt too small to contain me. I knew my Virgo had made a similar claim, and I felt for them because it was horrible. When your very skin didn’t fit you?

  Sol’s lair would b
e more welcoming.

  “So you thought you’d counter that by being creative?” she surmised.

  “Literally.” My lips were firmed as I dipped my chin.

  “Why? Why did you want to destroy something?”

  “I don’t know. I just felt like my skin was too tight for my body again.”

  “Again?”

  “That was how I felt when the meteor was crashing down to Earth.”

  “Can you kill the flower?” she asked in a hushed voice.

  I reached over, allowed the glow to form once more, then let the vortex reappear, except this time, it didn’t flow clockwise, but counter-clockwise.

  Within seconds, there was nothing but ash on my grandmother’s hand.

  “Hostia,” she spat, dropping the ash as though it were toxic. “How did you do that?”

  I understood her fear. I was feeling it too, but I’d also recognized there was no need to fear it. I wasn’t a danger to anyone.

  Not yet, at any rate.

  I thought about how to answer her question, before explaining, “The flower has life. It pulses through it.” That’s what Daniel had exposed with his magic. “I drained that.”

  “How?”

  “I called upon it. Just as I breathed it into being, I retracted it.”

  “But how?”

  I bit my bottom lip. “I don’t know.”

  “This is bad, mija. If you can do this, what else can you do?” she whispered, eyes wide and with something buried away within those chocolate brown depths, a color I’d shared with her, that had everything inside me freezing.

  Needing to connect, I reached over and cupped her cheek. “Are you scared of me?”

  The wrinkled face puckered as she stared at me. I knew she was taken aback at my touch, but she slowly shook her head. “Scared for you. There’s a difference.”

  There always was. Prepositions… the nuance maker in the English language.

  With my thumb, I rubbed the deep crevice that was a smile line at the side of her mouth. The glow appeared, and I began to trace the other wrinkles that had etched their path onto my abuela’s face.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Breathing life into you,” I told her simply.

  When she tensed, I half-expected her to grab a hold of my wrist and stop me, but she didn’t.

  “What will that do?” she inquired instead, and her words were shaky, filled with awe.

  “You’ll find out in the morning.”

  Her eyes were narrowed as she grabbed my chin and forced me to look at her. “You act as though you know, but if you do, why not tell me?”

  “I’m acting on instinct,” I answered her honestly, staring at her face and needing those wrinkles and lines to be gone. “An instinct that’s telling me to do this.”

  She frowned at me, but settled down and didn’t disturb me while I worked.

  I knew if Daniel was here, and if he held her, he’d illuminate every single ounce of life within her body, just as he’d done for the daisy. Matthew would make not only the wrinkles disappear, but her entire form, and Seph? Sol, he might just turn her into a statue forever.

  The meteor had changed us in ways that none of us could anticipate, and this? Gaia help us, it was only just the beginning.

  Still, I shoved that aside as I worked, needing to see my abuela without the lines of age marring her features.

  “You’re in danger, mija,” my grandmother whispered. “If you can bring life and death with the casting of a spell… there is no telling who will want you in their army.”

  Her warning should have filled me with trepidation, but it didn’t. If she’d tried to frighten me, she failed, because my lips curved.

  “They can try,” I murmured.

  But they wouldn’t succeed.

  Four

  Matthew

  As I stared at Riel, who was looking out onto the field, I listened in on the conversation between her other Virgo.

  “She’s acting weird.”

  “She’s always been weird,” Seph countered, opposing Daniel’s statement.

  “He’s not wrong, Dan,” I added. “More interested in her cellphone than learning how to fight, you know that as well as we do.”

  “Until we started teaching her what she needed to be taught,” he argued. “It’s like she’s ancient or something now. The way she’s talking?”

  I knew what he meant. “It’s like she knows the answer to a question before it’s even spoken,” I mumbled, watching as she pressed her hand to a tobacco plant that was five feet tall. The thick leaves made the rows between other plants tight, but as she traced her hand around one leaf, it began to glow. Just as it had when Daniel touched the daisy she’d made for him.

  We’d swiftly learned that she, too, could do what we did.

  If I could make something invisible, that was a power she shared. And the way Seph had turned that daisy into metal? I knew she could do it also, even if she hadn’t displayed that particular talent yet.

  There was an otherworldliness to her that made the beast inside me that was forged from the Virgo bond stir to life with anger. It made her out of reach in a way I couldn’t abide. I was waiting for the Rut, waiting for it desperately, because I had a feeling that was the only thing that would bring her back to us.

  I didn’t know how or why I had that belief, but it was there at the forefront of my mind, and I willed for the Rut to commence. For her to be reminded of what she was—not a witch born Fae, not the savior of thousands, or the creature who had absorbed powers that were meant for many—ours.

  Our woman.

  Our witch.

  Our mate.

  A hand slapped my shoulder. “She’ll be ours soon, brother.”

  My throat felt tight. “Can you read minds now too, Dan?”

  “No. But that would be damn useful. Maybe that’s a talent that will develop.”

  He sounded so cheerful I could have throttled him. “Why aren’t you scared?”

  “For two reasons. One, she’s here with us. As long as we’re with her, then I’m okay. Two, she’s Riel. Whatever else she is, she’s that first. The Rut will start and she’ll be grounded. I know it.”

  “How?”

  “I don’t know. I just do. I feel it in my blood.”

  I knew what he meant, because I did too—could feel something simmering inside me, waiting on the Rut to flourish—but that didn’t stop the uncertainty from flooding me simply because she was behaving so fucking oddly right now.

  Rubbing my hand across my chin, I murmured, “We need to figure out a way to control our powers before we can help her with hers.” When I looked down at his hand on mine, I could see that my arteries were alight. Only the arteries. The veins weren’t. I guessed that made sense, considering arteries carried oxygenated blood while veins were stripped of life-giving oxygen.

  “Maybe we should speak with Linford. He’s been controlling his for a lifetime,” Seph pointed out warily.

  “We need to watch her.”

  I shook my head at Daniel’s statement. “She’s the safest she’ll ever be, Dan. She might not be a warrior, but she has magic on her side now, doesn’t she?” Magic and a whole host of shit none of us understood.

  Sol, even her grandparents were eying her oddly, and the stuff they’d done in their lifetime would probably fit into several tomes.

  He grimaced. “True.”

  “The AFata are here on this island,” Seph cautioned.

  “They’re everywhere. She’s safe,” I repeated, knowing instinctively that it was true.

  Seph conceded that with a dip of his chin.

  “I think we need answers first and foremost. What use are we if you turn everything into metal, I make shit I touch disappear, and you make everything glow?”

  Dan snorted. “You’re just jealous because I can make a light show.”

  My lips twitched. “Yeah. Jealous. That’s exactly what I am.”

  He shoved my shoulder, and I took
the hit with a grin, even as I cast a glance at my woman.

  She was staring out toward a barn that was thatched and managed to look like something the pilgrims on the Mayflower would have built. Gabriella had told us earlier that was where they cured the leaves.

  The fields were manned by a team of female farmers she’d handpicked. We’d seen a few of them tending to the plants early this morning, before they’d headed off and gone about their other business.

  When harvest came, they’d have to pick the crop, cure it, and then create the tobacco and the cigars the island was famous for.

  I’d half expected my grandmother-in-law to be running this place with magic, so to learn she used humans came as a surprise. Magic was a pest repellent alone, while the women did all the other work.

  My stance had been myopic, perhaps, but I didn’t pretend to know or understand everything.

  In the Fae world, we’d have used magic to run this place. My father had several farms that nourished the household, which ran on tithed power. No Fae would deign to farm. It was beneath us. The lowest caste was administrative for a reason—our people were born to be managers and higher, not worker bees.

  The elitist thought had me wincing, but I left it behind along with my mate as we traipsed through the small house to find Riel’s grandfather.

  He and Gabriella had been discussing something in a language none of us spoke for hours, ever since Riel had conversed with her grandmother after awakening from her long sleep.

  I wasn’t sure what we were waiting for. Wasn’t sure why we were staying here for the moment, but considering I didn’t have a clue what the Sol was going on, I figured I wasn’t in a position to question why.

  If I knew one thing, it was that sometimes Elders knew best.

  The cottage was small, five rooms at best, and we found Linford brooding in a small salon which could, I reckoned, be considered a formal sitting room for Sunday best.

  His wings fluttered as he stared out the window, and I saw that he was brooding over Riel.