by D. N. Hoxa
“Miss Montero, glad you could join us,” said Boyle, putting his fingers covered in a dozen rings under his chin. He was a big man, but I had the impression that the copper-colored pelt that hung over his shoulders was the reason why he looked so massive. His face was too rough to be considered handsome, with olive-colored skin dotted with blemishes on his cheeks and bags under his eyes that made you think he’d painted them blue on purpose. But his dark eyes were almost smoky, and I had no doubt in my mind that he could lure me in if he wanted to with just a word.
I smiled brightly. “Thank you for seeing me, Mr. Boyle.”
He raised a brow. “I’m deeply sorry about the manner in which we’ve had to bring you here. You must understand that some secrets are worth going to great lengths to keep.”
Asshole. “No harm done. I am perfectly fine,” I said with a nod and looked at the men standing over him. The first looked ordinary enough, of average height, a mess of blonde hair that seemed to only grow on the top of his head and light blue eyes. But the other was far from ordinary.
He was a fae. He was probably the fae—Faron, the one who’d put me to sleep. I hadn’t even noticed until it was too late because fae magic didn’t work like spells. It didn’t require words—only intent. And each Court had their special sets of powers. The fae smiled when he saw me looking, his light green eyes a stark contrast against his dark beige skin and his caramel-colored hair. He was as beautiful as he would be deadly in a fight—and not only because of his magic. But when I saw the emblem pinned to his green tunic, I was surprised, to say the least. It was a golden circle no bigger than two inches wide, with the shape of a tree in full blossom engraved on it. The symbol of the Spring Court—the same Court that was destroyed some fifty years ago when the elves killed every last one of them and took their kingdom for themselves. The three other fae Courts—Summer, Autumn, and Winter—still stood. They still fought. It seemed like the elves hadn’t been as thorough with the Spring Court as they’d thought.
“Happy to hear it. We were pleasantly surprised to find you were one of us, Miss Montero. And that you were never Nulled. I’ve never met a Marauder before, and I must say that I’m intrigued,” Boyle continued.
“I’ve never met a Possessor before, either.” I couldn’t tell him that I wasn’t intrigued by him at all.
The man smiled, showing me white teeth, the canines pointed as if they’d wanted to turn to fangs but had changed their minds halfway. “You’ve been looking for your brother, as I understand. You’ve also caused us a bit of trouble in your search, too.”
I shrugged. “I’m sure you would have done the same in my position.” His smokey eyes twitched. “But I do apologize for whatever damage I’ve done. I assure you, I was not aware that the Uprising even existed until last night.”
“Until you killed three of our men,” he said with a smile. So we’d killed three of them. Good. “You and Damian Reed.”
My heart fell to my heels. “Only because they tried to kill us first.”
He sighed as if he was suddenly exhausted. “You touched the amulet, Miss Montero. And you didn’t die, which means you replicated Philips’s magic to control the power he’d gathered.” I said nothing. “We’re going to need that magic back, as I’m sure you understand. We’ve invested a good amount in it.”
“Of course. I understand. And I’m happy to give it back, if you show me how. It was an accident, nothing more.” I looked at his neck, at his torso, but he’d buttoned his dark grey shirt all the way up, and I couldn’t see if he had the amulet on him right now. It didn’t matter. As long as I kept my cool, I could talk myself and Sonny out of this mess. I just needed to think before I spoke.
“That is good news,” said Boyle, leaning back in his chair. “It certainly makes things easier.”
I smiled. “All I ask in return is that you give my brother back to me. He doesn’t belong here. He’s too young still and also a Sacri sorcerer. I think you know this already.” But they didn’t. If they did, they wouldn’t have filled this whole place with people barely out of teen-hood.
“It is not a problem at all,” Boyle said. “If your brother chooses to leave, I will allow it, but you are the only one who can give the magic back to the amulet. The only one who can control it for now, while it’s in you.”
My heart beat loudly in my chest. “Then I will try it. Right now, if you have the amulet.” I’d do it in a heartbeat. I didn’t need more magic. I had plenty of my own. All I needed was Sonny.
“In a moment,” Boyle said. “We do want to let your brother go, but things are a bit more complicated than that.”
I kept my face expressionless. “How so?”
My skin was covered in a thin layer of sweat. My hands hurt from how tightly I held my fists. It was getting more difficult to keep up the act by the second, and I was pretty damned sure the fae guy could see it. He kept smiling at me for no fucking reason.
“Damian Reed,” Boyle said, watching me with his dark eyes, waiting for a reaction. On the outside, I gave him none. On the inside, I could barely hear his voice through the beating of my heart. “We’ve been searching for a way to get close to him for a while now, but we never could. Until you showed up.” Boyle pointed his index finger at me and grinned.
“I am not, by any means, close to Damian Reed. I was using him to find my brother, and he was using me to find the amulet. You have the amulet and I’ve found my brother,” I said through gritted teeth.
“The truth is, Miss Montero, we want his head, and we believe you can deliver it to us.”
Goose bumps raised on my arms.
“I don’t kill people, Mr. Boyle. I kill hellbeasts,” I reminded him, but the look in his eyes said he didn’t believe me.
“You did just fine the other night. You’re powerful enough if you have the magic of the amulet in you. And that’s where it’s going to stay—until you kill Damian Reed.”
I forced out a laugh, but it sounded more like screeching tires. “I can’t kill him. Even with the magic of the amulet, he’s too powerful. He’d see me coming from a mile away! It’s impossible. Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t kill him.”
Kill Damian? After he’d saved my life? What kind of a monster would that make me?
“I’m sure you’ll find a way, Miss Montero. After all, your brother’s life is on the line here,” Boyle said, leaning his head to the side as he watched me.
My body shook as anger rose in me. My magic responded. I couldn’t kill Damian. How could I kill Damian?
“I can’t do it,” I said, completely defeated. “You have people—plenty of them. I can’t kill him even if I tried.”
Boyle suddenly stood up. He was about my height, and I was right, he wasn’t as big as the pelt made him look. He put his hands on the table and leaned closer to me.
“This is the deal, Miss Montero. You bring us Damian and give back the magic of the amulet, we let your brother go and you never hear from us again.”
My teeth gritted as an invisible force tried to push my hands up. My magic wanted out.
“You can’t do this,” I said, my voice rising. “You can’t make me kill him. I’ll give you back your magic! I’ll give it back right now.”
Boyle leaned back and looked down at my hand. I realized that my fingers were glowing purple only when it got impossible to keep my fists clenched. My fingers straightened on their own accord. Magic sang in my chest, the echoes of it spreading wider and wider, and it wouldn’t stop until it was released into the world.
“Make no mistake, we will do whatever it takes to make sure you do as you’re told,” Boyle said, slowly stepping back while the two men behind him stepped forward.
Instantly, I began to feel a cloud created in my mind.
I looked at the fae. He was looking at me, completely focused on my face, and I could feel his magic coming in waves toward me.
“No!” I shouted and raised my hands, my magic ready to spill out of my glowing fingers if I just spok
e the spell fast enough.
I couldn’t. I’d already let him get too close to my mind—a stupid mistake.
While I focused on the fae, the other guy, the blond one, hit me with a spell on my side and sent me flying in the air before I fell hard on the edge of the table.
“Do not try to fight us, Miss Montero. You will not win. Bring us Damian Reed, and you will have your brother.”
“Fuck you!” I shouted at the top of my lungs and held onto the table to get back on my feet. It was so, so hard to move. My limbs were so heavy. My mind was shutting down, and the magic that had roared like a beast within me just seconds ago was growing tamer.
I turned to them, trying to grab one of my daggers to throw at the fae’s face, but my fingers refused to obey me. I touched the handle of the dagger, but I couldn’t grab it, couldn’t pull it out of its sheath. My legs gave up on me, and I fell to my knees. The fae walked to me, slowly, a bright smile on his beautiful face.
“I can’t…I can’t…” I couldn’t speak. The fae squatted down in front of me and pushed me gently on the shoulder. I fell to the floor on my side.
“Bring him to us, Montero. Bring him to us and your brother will be free. We’ll be watching.”
Boyle’s voice filled my head even though I couldn’t see him. I couldn’t see anything but darkness. The last thing I remembered was someone grabbing me by the ankles. Then, I was gone.
Chapter Nineteen
Somebody called my name.
My head pounded as if someone was banging it against the wall.
“Hey, wake up!”
A slap on my cheek.
My limbs felt so heavy. What the hell happened to me?
“Wake up!”
I heard her hand pulling up, and I knew she was going to slap me again. My hands moved in front of my face instinctively.
Sonny. Boyle. The fae. I remembered.
My lids opened to see two big silver eyes looking down on me. Moira’s hand was an inch from my face when she saw that I was awake, and she smiled.
“Can you get up?”
She didn’t wait for an answer. She grabbed my hand and pulled me up as if I weighed nothing. The world swam before my eyes. I couldn’t keep my balance, and I fell back. Luckily, something was behind me—a lamppost, and it kept me from falling.
“Hey, easy,” Moira said, narrowing her brows. “You okay?”
Was I okay? Fuck no. I was not okay. I was not even close to okay.
Kill Damian. Boyle wanted me to kill Damian or he would kill Sonny. He’d do it—I saw it in his eyes. He wouldn’t even hesitate.
“Hello?” Moira waved her hand in front of my face. I slapped it away and squeezed my eyes shut. My strength was coming back to me. My limbs felt stronger, able to hold me. I slowly moved away from the lamppost and looked around.
The sky was dark and we were in the New York Shade, the crystal over my head spilling green light everywhere. I didn’t think I’d been in this particular neighborhood before. We were in a narrow street behind a two-story building, and behind us was a skyscraper, so tall I couldn’t see the tip of it in the darkness. We were at the very edge of the Shade. A street over and we’d be looking at the East River from the real world.
“Can you walk? I need to get you back, right now,” Moira said, her hands on her hips. She was annoyed, it seemed.
“Back where?”
“To Damian,” she said, giving me a pointed look. “You’ve been gone the whole day. We’ve been looking everywhere for you, and he’s gone out of his fucking mind. If you don’t want him to kill everyone you know, I suggest we get going.” She turned and started walking to the left.
My feet were frozen. My whole body was frozen. Even my heart was barely beating now.
Tears stung my eyes so I lowered my head. Kill Damian Reed. What the fuck was I going to do now?
“Sin, we really—”
“Stop it,” I hissed. “I’m not going to Damian.” I couldn’t go to Damian, not right now. I needed to think. “I need to…I need to…” I looked around at the darkness, not a soul in sight. But they’d be watching. Boyle said so. I gritted my teeth and took in a deep breath. “You can go back and tell him that I’m fine. I’m going to spend the night at my friend’s apartment, and I’m going to call him when I wake up. Okay?”
Moira squinted her eyes at me. “Where were you, Sin?”
“I was kidnapped. Please, just leave me alone. I need to rest. Just…tell him I’m fine.” I turned the other way and started walking in the darkness. My body was still so heavy, I felt like I was walking under water, but it was getting better with every step.
“Don’t make him wait long,” Moira called behind me, but I didn’t turn. I just kept on walking.
My stomach turned the more I remembered. I wanted to throw up, hoping it would give me some relief, but I realized I hadn’t eaten anything at all. It was fine. Malin would be home. She’d give me something to eat. I hoped she was home. I grabbed my phone from my pocket, but it was dead. No battery. I looked around the narrow street, hoping Kit would find me already. I needed his company.
And I needed to think about what the hell I was going to do. That’s what I needed. Fresh air and some coffee and maybe a shower and…
Oh, no.
The bright light that came from my right side blinded me for a second, and I stumbled to the side until my shoulder hit the wall of the skyscraper.
“Hello!” said a cheerful voice, coming from the stand that had materialized in front of me.
It was a little over three feet wide. It stood on four black wheels and it was painted yellow below, while the shade over it was full of colors melted together. In the middle of it stood Tyar, smiling brightly.
“Hi,” I said with a sigh.
“Rough night?”
I smiled. “You have no idea.”
“Whatever it is that has you feeling this way, a cup of coffee will make everything better,” Tyar said, his voice cheerful. He was a Summer fae who’d lived in the New York Shade for a long time. Nobody remembered how long. He’d always been there. People said he had some sort of an agreement with the Shade that enabled him to hop from one place to the other within seconds. He did that when his powers, however the hell they worked, felt someone in need of coffee. As ridiculous as it was, he always knew. All you had to do was think of coffee and his magic would pick it up. We didn’t know that much about fae magic, but I had a suspicion that there was more to it than we knew. Maybe some mind reading involved?
Anyway, Tyar would never tell. He opened a drawer in his stand and pulled something out, threw it in the air, and caught it again. It was a big paper cup designed with the same colors as the shade of his stand. Then he moved to the side of it, where three different coffee machines were lined up one after the other. “What’s it going to be?” he asked, spinning the cup in his hands. “Latte? Mocha? Maybe something more exotic?”
“Just black, thanks,” I said and reached for the money in my pocket. It was all I had with me, and I was going to have to go back to the apartment to get more. I could do that later.
“Black, like the night,” Tyar said, and he moved to the machine in the middle. “So simple, yet so tasty.”
I looked at him. He had curly blonde hair and beautiful brown eyes. He didn’t look like a fae at all, dressed in a red shirt and a pair of faded jeans. He wore no accessories or the emblem of his Court because he no longer was part of them. Either he’d left his world of his own free will or he’d been banished.
“Tyar, do you know what happened to the Spring Court?” I found myself asking. The thought of the fae Faron who’d rendered me defenseless with just a look had my hair standing on end. How the hell was I going to compete against him when he didn’t even need to be close to me to put me to sleep?
“War happened,” Tyar said as he prepared my coffee. “Their kingdom was the closest to the elflands. Their houses were burned, their younglings killed. Just what happens in war.”
> “Did the elves kill all of them?” I asked, just to see what he would say. I already knew the answer.
“Oh, I’m sure there are Spring fae out there, just not enough to make a difference anymore. They’ll die down eventually, in the next couple of hundred years. A shame, really. Spring magic had beauty and grace even Summer magic couldn’t match. It calmed you like a lullaby.”
Oh, yeah. I’d experienced it firsthand.
“You wouldn’t happen to know how to block Spring magic, would you?”
Tyar turned to look at me then, a curious expression on his handsome face. He put a cap on my coffee and handed me the mug.
“Why do you ask, hellbeast killer?” he asked, his voice dripping sweetness.
I shook my head. “No reason.” I put the money on the counter. “Thanks, Tyar.”
“You’re welcome,” he said, staring after me as I walked away, the warm coffee in my hand begging to be drank. But I couldn’t—not yet. I needed to eat something first.
“Hey, hellbeast killer!” Tyar called, and I turned. “You block Spring magic the same way you block all fae magic: you give it what it wants.”
Really helpful. I raised a hand and waved.
By the time I got to Malin’s apartment, the coffee had lost half its warmth. I prayed with all I had that she would be home, and when I knocked on the door and she didn’t answer right away, I thought about falling to the floor.
But eventually, I heard her footsteps, and the door opened.
“Sin?” Malin said, her brown eyes wide with fear at the sight of me. “Oh, my goddess, come on in!”
She pulled me into her apartment, closing the door behind me.
“Hey, Mal,” I said with a weak smile and let her guide me to the couch in her living room. It was comfortable, and the smell of baked cookies instantly made me feel better. My mouth watered.
“What the hell happened to you? Where were you?” She sat next to me, took the cup out of my hand and turned me to her. She touched my face, looked over my hands, my arms, and then pulled my jacket off.
