Finally Faeling: An Eight Wings Academy Novel: Book Three

by Akeroyd, Serena

  “Why did you bring me here again? Are we in danger?”

  “Sí, you’re in danger. You’re walking toward a goal with no path in sight.”

  My throat clutched at that because I knew she was right, but I had no idea what else I could do to protect my family from the looming Fae threat. “I’m working on instinct,” I corrected, needing her to know there was some method to my madness.

  She snorted. “That’s one way of putting it.”

  Temper whirled inside me, flashing so quickly out of nowhere that it was like a wildfire in a field of deadwood. “Instinct is all I have to work with,” I stated grimly. “What would you have me do when there is no one I can ask about my situation?”

  A hum. “Your Virgo can aid you if you allow them to.”

  My brow puckered. “How can they help me? They’re as—”

  “You’re going into Rut,” my great-great-grandmother snapped. “You must allow them to ease you, it will help you harness your powers. But not yet. Not now.”

  “What? You mean, I haven’t already,” I winced, “rutted?”

  “Hostia, no. It still burns away deep inside you. The metamorphosis you underwent put it on a slow burn. Your Rut will be like no other, but you must wait until you allow yourself to fall to its powers. The Rut can be appeased, and it must be until you do as I say.”

  I bit my bottom lip. “Is the Rut why I feel like fire ants are crawling over my skin?”

  “Yes,” came the sad whisper. “I’m sorry to hear it pains you so, mija.”

  This time, I didn’t just bite my damn lip, I gnawed on it like it was a steak and I hadn’t eaten in days. “This feeling will grow worse with time, won’t it?”

  “Sí, and that’s why you have to act fast, mija.” A shushing sound appeared, and like a phantom, I felt the whisper brushing over my skin. It soothed the strange ache inside me enough to have me moaning with the relief. It was like pouring a vat of calamine lotion onto poison oak—a relief but not a cure. “That may buy us time.”

  Reflecting upon the fact my dead great-great-grandmother had just cast a spell on me, I blew out a breath and whispered, “Time in which I can do what?”

  “Linda y lista,” came the soft words with another chuckle. Pretty and clever.

  “I aim to please,” I half-snapped.

  “Good, if that’s true, you will do exactly as I say.” The sudden harsh tone reminded me of a general rallying its troupes. “Time is precious, mija, and your instincts are not totally wrong. It was genius to capture the battalion, even more genius to get the AFata on your side in case things devolve, but I have no wish to see our brothers and sisters suffer in a pointless war. I know that is a desire you share.”

  I gulped. “Yes. I don’t want a war. The AFata do.”

  “That’s because they’re short-sighted. They’ve been waging terrorism on the Assembly for so long that they’ve become blind. They believe acts of aggression are the only ways to succeed, but they’re wrong.”

  My brow puckered. “I’m glad to hear that. I don’t want to fight, but neither do I want to be hunted for the rest of our lives so I can be experimented on.”

  “Of course,” she murmured. “No child of our line could survive such captivity. We are too elemental. It would kill us.”

  “Salvation through death,” I muttered. “At least if they do catch me, I wouldn’t be held for long.”

  A snort sounded. “Let’s not be pessimistic, child.”

  Wasn’t it strange how, back at the finca, I felt like a stalwart strength in the face of my mates’ and my grandparents’ confusion, but here? I recognized that show of strength for what it was—someone walking in the dark, trying desperately not to fall over.

  Just because my instincts guided me more than theirs did, it didn’t mean I was in the know.

  “I feel pessimistic,” I admitted, my shoulders sagging as I whispered, “I have no idea what I’m doing.”

  “Claro que no,” was muttered around a soft laugh. ‘Of course not.’ “You are young, child. That’s why you have me. Even my granddaughter is young in comparison to me, and it is the ancestors who will help you, it is the old lines that will take you forth and have you succeed where Sol and Gaia wish you to reap change.”

  My eyes stung. “Gaia and Sol?”

  “This is a quest from them, is it not? Only they could put you on such a path and give you the means with which to succeed.”

  The gentle chiding had my bottom lip quivering. “Is this hopeless, tatarabuela?”

  “Not if you do as I say.”

  Her resolve would have concerned me if she was anyone other than a child of my line. The de Santos del Sol were powerful. Generation after generation of witches who were celebrated in their homeland.

  “If you can find a way for me to live out my life with my Virgo—” Sol, how I wanted that. Every single one of my days had been a black hole of solitude without them in it. I hadn’t known differently back then, but I did now. I recognized that we were still new to one another, still very much in the learning curve of a relationship that none of us had anticipated, but I wanted it so badly the ache in my body was nothing compared to the one in my heart.

  My tatarabuela shushed me. “That was always your destiny, mija. You were born to be theirs as they were born to be yours, and together, you will reap a change that has been written in the sands of time since Sol and Gaia granted us that lofty thing called fate.”

  “Tell me, what do I do,” I whispered, hope fluttering through me where there’d only been determination before—a determination to survive, something I was intent on achieving through sheer bullheadedness and instinct.

  “What is a Gaian candlestick?”

  The black darkness swarmed around me as I gathered my thoughts together. “The means with which we bless our houses, our families. Each point represents an element, but earth is at its center for that is where Gaia’s true strength reigns.”

  “True, very true. All children learn this and they wouldn’t be wrong, for that is what it has come to represent. What they don’t know is its origins.”

  “Origins?” I rasped. “We’ve been blessing our houses since the beginning of magic. Our hearths need cleansing—”

  “That they do, but who came up with the notion of cleansing our hearths? Sol and Gaia touch us each and every day, but they have only ever communicated with the first families.”

  My mouth ran dry. “The first families?”

  “Sí.”

  “You’re not serious.”

  “Oh, but I am. Deadly.”

  Heart pounding, I whispered, “They’re a myth.”

  “Of course they’re not, mija. Now who’s being short-sighted? Magic has its roots as does any flowering plant, for that is all magic is. Another of Gaia’s creations that grows with time once properly nourished.”

  Thoughts racing in time with the dull beating of my heart, I murmured, “What nourishes magic?”

  “The meteors.” A hum. “The Fae.”

  I jerked upright and instantly regretted it. The jolt set all my nerve endings alight once more, and only the whisper of a breeze in this seemingly airless place calmed the licking fires that bit at me like a rabid dog in need of blood.

  “Calm yourself, mija,” my tatarabuela chided. “There is no point in agitating yourself.”

  There wasn’t?

  Far as I could tell, I was being dealt more life-changing blows with every word she whispered.

  I snarled, “The Fae do not nourish. They are pirates. They steal from us. They take our magic and—”

  “The meteors bring Sol’s powers to Gaia’s land,” she interrupted, her voice calm and soothing, talking over mine as though I hadn’t spoken at all. “But even the Gods err. We are their children, incapable of dealing with their raw powers, and our suffering was something that even Gaia and Sol did not foresee. As the power from Sol’s stone spread across the Earth that first time, the magic overpowered us, and so another of their c
hildren came to our aid.

  “We work together in harmony, sowing the seeds of magic as a team but, along the way, that has been forgotten and that is what must be redressed.”

  My throat tightened. “You’re damn right it must,” I rasped.

  A chuckle. “All in good time, child. Before Sol enriched our magic and changed things for us, there were those who were the first to be granted Gaia’s Gift. Four in all.”

  “One for each stick on the Gaian candelabra?” I hazarded a guess.

  “Sí. One for each element. We, my child, are wind.”

  For a second, I could do nothing but gape at her. “What?” I shrieked. “We’re a first family?”

  “Sí.” The calm voice did anything but calm me down.

  “My mother lives in one of the shittiest neighborhoods in Florida. She works two dead-end jobs and my kid brothers haven’t had a fresh pair of clothes between them that aren’t hand-me-downs—”

  “Magical wealth and personal wealth are two separate things entirely, Gabriella,” came the instant reprimand. “You know this. Even you, who are the de Santos del Sol witch with the least knowledge of your powers thanks to your destiny, know this.”

  I did, but holy Sol! This was too surreal to be true.

  My parents lived in abject poverty. We’d been seconds away from food stamps almost all my life, and only my mother’s sheer will and certainty that the Conclave would find us had stopped her from seeking federal aid.

  We’d been living like humans without the full benefit of humans all my life, and we were a first family?

  Even before Eight Wings, where most of my knowledge banks on my kind had begun to fill up, I’d known what they were.

  My mouth quivered as I whispered, “I have no affinity with the wind.”

  She snorted. “Your abilities with the weather make a liar out of you. The AFata approach you with wind. Not only does the Fae part of you polarize their magic, but they cannot capture you with your own elemental power.” A laugh escaped her. “My darling Gabriella was always a canny one. All that time in their midst and she never let on, not once, that she had witch wind in her arsenal.”

  The pride for my grandmother was evident in every word.

  “You must approach the other families, mija. They will be waiting for you.”

  Bewilderment whispered through me. “You want me to go meet them?”

  “Why would that surprise you?” she rasped. “They are the root of Gaia’s flowering Gift. With them at your back, you have no need of the AFata, and with their support, no Assembly in the world could ignore you.”

  “What would you have me do, tatarabuela?” I asked shakily. “Am I going there for tea and conversation or with a purpose in mind?”

  She tsked. “Such sass.” A laugh fell from her lips. “We always were blessed with an attitude…” She sighed then. “You will encounter the others at the cardinal points. Some believe that you would find earth in the North, but, instead you will find water. In the South, they believe you’ll find fire, but you’ll find earth, and in the East, you shall find fire when most believe that to house wind. We westerlings should house water, but, as you know, we are wind. Sol and Gaia have a canny way about them.” More laughter tinkled into the vacuum. “Only in death can one appreciate their smarts.”

  I scowled at that. “Why the misdirection?”

  “For our protection, of course. We are the most precious of their lines.”

  I heaved out a sigh when she went quiet on me. “That’s it? That’s all the clue you’re going to give me?”

  “I have no need to give you more. Gabriella already knows their location, just as they know hers. Only four people knew your grandmother was truly alive. Her Virgo mate, and the heads of the fire, water, and earth lines… She could not keep herself hidden from them, not when she is the matriarch of the line.

  “You will go to them, and they will be ready… as must you be. Now is the time to act, my child. Go with Gaia and know your family is proud of you.”

  Tears instantly burned my eyes. She had no way of knowing how much that meant to me.

  “W-Will I see you again?”

  “Yes. Our time together is not over. Now go. You have much to do.” A light laugh tittered along the airwaves. “Oh, and mija, their seed will ease your suffering.”

  Before I could die of mortification, I closed my eyes to blink, and when they opened again, I was back in the farmhouse. Back in the bedroom, sandwiched between my Virgo, their sweating forms clung to mine in a union that could not have been more perfect had I tried.

  My ancestor’s words whispered into my mind, the purpose she’d given me resonating on a level that ran close to soul deep. Duty wasn’t something I’d had. Not like my mates. Family loyalty was the only thing I’d been taught, and I’d even turned my back on that when I was old enough to go to college and get away from all my kid brothers.

  All my life, I’d considered my family a burden. All my life, I’d failed to trust them with the true me. The saddest thing of all was the fact that a part of me knew that, if I could live my life again, I’d live it no other way because I knew my mother wouldn’t either.

  She’d still end up with so many boys for sons in an attempt to have another daughter who was a better witch than me.

  And I’d never be able to trust her with the true me because what I was threatened her very existence.

  Guilt, unease, and the inherent belief that I was as selfish as she was shimmered through me when I turned on the mattress. The second I did, Seph grunted and turned with me, not stopping until every inch of my back was connected with him.

  He didn’t care, at least not in his sleep, that we were sweating buckets in the tropical climate. He didn’t care that tomorrow we’d be glued together, and I couldn’t find it in myself to care either. If anything, he brought me comfort, dispelled the thoughts that were sprinting through my mind, and eased the inherent ache deep within me.

  The sensation of fire ants running under my skin was tamed with him so close and Matthew and Daniel just scant inches away, and I knew, without my great-great-grandmother’s warning still drifting in my ears, that somehow, the biggest challenge ahead of me lay in holding off the Rut until the duty to my line was done…

  But she’d had faith in me, and that meant I had to have faith too.

  ❖

  Daniel

  The second she’d claimed him, I’d felt it.

  Deep in my bones, in my soul, I’d felt it. There was a bond uniting us, tying us together. It had seemed to sink into my DNA, merge into my being.

  I’d closed my eyes at the feeling, aware of the sensation, but aware, also, of something else.

  Of something more.

  If I’d tried, really tried, I could feel what Riel was. Could experience the satisfaction Seph was experiencing. It had been bewildering, but more than that, it had been intoxicating.

  My tongue had felt thick in my mouth as I’d allowed the sensations to permeate my being, and instead of getting riled up, I’d been awash with the feeling of satiation, of relaxation and comfort.

  Bizarre, to be sure, but it had felt good. Right. That was the only way I could describe it. Like I’d been waiting to feel this way all my life.

  As the connection had settled, I’d sighed, releasing some of these sensations, but mostly letting them percolate. Almost like letting a fine red wine aerate by leaving it to breathe, that was how I’d felt.

  When Seph had sagged into Riel, his body coming to rest atop her, I’d felt the drugged delight whirling around his system. Had felt it and experienced it myself. As he’d slumped to the side of her, I’d glanced at Matt, had seen his eyelids were heavy, and that he looked just as dopey as I felt. Both nodding at one another in agreement, we’d come to the mutual decision that we needed to be on that bed too.

  I cast my clothes aside, leaving only my briefs on as I climbed onto the bed. I flung myself back, let myself get comfortable, and the next thing I knew, it was
the next morning and there was a whistle sounding from somewhere in the bedroom.

  Blinking, I stared up at the ceiling. Shards of sunlight penetrated the heavy shades, allowing bright bands of gold to streak along the uneven surface.

  “What the fuck is that whistle?” Matt rasped groggily.

  Riel moaned. “Sounds like a phone. Shut it off,” she mumbled, turning her face and hiding it in the closest available object, which happened to be my arm. She lifted it like it was hers then placed it over her face to hide from the relatively small amount of light that filtered into the room.

  My lips curved at the ridiculousness of the position, but I didn’t move. I liked how at ease she was with me, how she felt she had the right to do that—and Sol, if she didn’t, then I wasn’t sure who did.

  When Seph scrambled off the bed, he grunted, prompting me to tip my head forward so I could monitor him. He glowered down at his screen then grumbled, “Father?” as he answered it before immediately starting to pace back and forth at the foot of the bed.

  Matt shuffled on the bed too, hitching higher so he could sag against the pillow, and when that didn’t work, he hooked his arm beneath his head to prop it up as we watched Seph’s one-way conversation.

  “Can’t you just send me the coordinates?” Whatever Noa said had him rolling his eyes. “Google sees all. Unless you’re managing to hide from satellites, then they’ve caught the location on camera.”

  He rolled his eyes again then pulled the phone away and put it on speaker.

  “—if you think we’d allow Google access to the Assembly’s HQ then you’re insane.”

  “Is it hidden with magic?” Seph volleyed.

  “No.”

  “Then how can you hide it?” he grumbled. “Father, you’re showing your age. Are you at the Assembly now?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then send me your live location.”

  “What’s that?”

  Seph’s nostrils flared. “Is Christopher with you?” At my cocked brow, Seph mouthed, “His PA.”

  “Yes,” Noa mumbled. “I’ll ask him.”

  “When you send it, we should be there soon. Okay?”

  “That would be appropriate considering this meeting is for you,” Noa replied dryly. “We only met last week. My fellow Assemblymen are not content with my drawing them away from their games of bridge and golf again.”