Dark Fae (Ruthless Boys of the Zodiac Book 1)

by Caroline Peckham

  I was blink, blink, blinking and I wasn’t sure it was helping. And if blinking couldn’t help then what? Then what??

  I was breathing too fast or too slow, definitely not at the regular speed and I didn’t know how to stop it.

  “Wait here for me, carina,” Dante said, rising to his feet.

  I wanted to call him back but my voice had up and died. I wrapped my arms around myself as I lost sight of the path and sports hall and all of it and I tipped my head back to look at the stars. The stars which were always mocking me. And they were laughing now because I was going to die.

  My heart was beating too fast. The edges of everything seemed blurry. And I was alone. All alone ever since Gareth had left me. And I was so, so mad at him for leaving me. Leaving me all alone. All alone forever.

  I was crying. No. It hurt so fucking much that I didn’t think I’d ever stop. Tears just poured and poured from me in a never ending torrent.

  I was flying in strong arms again but I couldn’t open my eyes to look at him this time. Maybe he was taking me back to our room and I could curl up with him again like the last time I wasn’t well.

  But this time it wasn’t the same. And I was forgetting all the important bits anyway so all I could do was float away until I was gone, gone, gone...

  I stood in the crowd, hunting for Elise, confused about the strange fucking drama show she’d just put on. But my gut told me something was wrong. And that was confirmed tenfold as a vision slammed into me, one of the sharpest I’d ever been gifted. It rang in my head like a gong and grabbed hold of me body and soul.

  A dark and winding tunnel. Elise in the woods. Voices chanting. Then an endless scream which burned a hole in my heart.

  “Fuck!” I scared everyone around me as I stumbled forward, the vision clearing as I forced students aside with a wall of vines conjured from my palms. Some of them fell, but I didn’t give a shit, my heart hitting a frantic beat as I threw my jacket to the ground, ripped my shirt off and let my wings burst from my shoulder blades.

  I ran for the doors, pushing them open and taking off into the sky without a single glance back.

  Hold the fuck on, Elise. I’m coming for you.

  I raced across campus on silent wings, drawing on The Sight, begging it to do my bidding for once. It was always so volatile, just within my grasp but never coming to me when I needed it most.

  Show me her, dammit.

  I sped over The Iron Wood, swooping low, listening, searching.

  She’s here somewhere, I know it.

  “Elise!” I called into the shadows, praying for them to reply.

  My eyes whipped back and forth, but the darkness was thick and the forest stretched on for miles and miles. My skin was itching, the Libra tattoo on my chest on fire like it knew she was in trouble. Hell, if I hadn’t wanted to accept we were Elysian Mates before, I was really getting the message now.

  “Help me!” I called upon the stars, gazing up at them and asking for their mercy.

  Their light fell over me and a vision swam before my eyes. Elise laughing, then crying, I could almost feel her mind in a haze and I knew for a fact she was drugged. For a second the connection was so powerful that my own mind became fuzzy. I’d never felt someone else’s forecast before but I could feel hers like she was an extension of me. And maybe she fucking was.

  She was blind, but I could feel hard stone as she crashed to her knees. Strong hands gripped her shoulders and pure rage found me, burning right into the depths of my soul.

  I will kill whoever those hands belong to.

  “Elise!” I bellowed again before a searing sensation in my Libra tattoo jolted me out of the reverie.

  I lost focus, crashing into the canopy and hitting my shins against the branches. I curled my wings around me to soften the blows, my heart in my throat as I tumbled lower and lower. I wielded the power of earth and the trees reached out to me, cushioning my fall in a net of leafy branches before I hit the ground

  I groaned, righting myself and healing the wounds I’d sustained, blood coating my fingers as I did so. Before I was done, an idea struck me and I dropped down to the forest floor, digging my hands into the damp soil.

  I closed my eyes and pushed my will into the dirt. I became detached from my body, using powerful magic to feel out into the world around me. Tunnels spread out like a spider’s web deep underground. I felt the passages splitting and forking a hundred times and I searched for a warm body, for Elise amongst the cold, wet earth that stretched for miles around me.

  Finally, I latched onto something burning hot. A fire. The soil alight with heat beneath it. I lifted my head and sprang upright, spreading my wings and launching myself into the trees.

  I landed on a branch high up in the canopy and started to run, controlling the trees around me as I raced across their limbs, springing from one to the next. I bent the branches to my will, meeting every one of my footfalls so I never faltered, racing on and on.

  Voices carried to my ears and I slowed my pace, coming to a halt in the arms of an oak tree and lowering to a crouch. I waited a long moment before they appeared then three figures arrived on the path dissecting the woodland beneath me. Two of them wore hooded robes and I knew on instinct they were part of the Black Card. Between them was a boy with yellow hair and reddened eyes. They each held one of his arms, guiding him along as he gazed up at the trees, laughing to himself like he was having the time of his life.

  “There’s so much wood out here,” he mused, seeming high. “How many books could they make from all this wood? A thousand at least. At least a thousand.”

  The members of the Black Card ignored him, towing him through the trees beneath me and I stilled as the stoned guy looked up. “Ohhhh flappy wings. Look how flappy they are! Haaa. A bird with a man’s head.”

  I shrank deeper into the shadows, but the Black Card weren’t paying his nonsense any attention luckily for me.

  As they moved deeper into the woods, I followed them through the canopy, my jaw tight as I feared what I might find at the end of this trail. It wasn’t exactly my style to go chasing after Fae to help them. But Elise wasn’t just any Fae. She was bonded to me so deeply that abandoning her now simply wasn’t an option. The bond between us was impossible to ignore, it possessed me heart and soul. All my work at breaking it was coming undone and I was a slave to it, bound in shackles like the ones inked onto my wrists.

  I’m close. I sense you. I hope you sense me too and you know just how much pain I’m gonna rain down on the assholes who took you.

  The chanting from my vision reached me from afar and panic tore through my limbs as I moved even faster. I didn’t know what awaited me up ahead, but I was prepared to face it. For her.

  The warm arms which carried me didn’t do enough to combat the cold and my teeth chattered as we moved through the dark.

  We were underground, deep, deep below the earth where the worms would eat me up if I got lost. I giggled at the thought of that and a growl sounded from the man who was carrying me. He was so strong, so big and strong. I felt like I knew him but it was too dark to see anything so I wasn’t sure.

  Suddenly the moon was shining down on me and I gasped as I looked up at its pale face. It seemed sad and that made me sad too. I took a deep breath which burrowed down into the core of me where all my grief and pain lay waiting like an open wound. Always looking for a way to claim me. Never letting me forget for long.

  I was dropped to the floor and I didn’t flinch in time, hitting the ground hard and tasting blood as my lip busted open. I hissed in pain and licked my lip, the call of my own power like a strange kind of temptation. Could I drink my own blood? What would it taste like? Cherry gum and lies probably. That was all I was these days.

  Someone grabbed my wrist and yanked me upright before I could think on it any more and I looked up at them to find their face hidden within a deep hood.

  I blinked at them but they didn’t give me a chance to look any closer before tugging m
e along.

  “Are we going to a party?” I asked.

  “Something like that,” they responded and I was sure I knew their voice. Or did I? Had it been a man or a woman? Now that I thought on it more closely I wasn’t entirely sure.

  An owl hooted in the trees and I swivelled as I hooted a response, trying to spot the creature in the branches overhead. He was my friend. And he wanted me to join him in the deep dark wood.

  “Hurry up, the King doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”

  “I’ve been looking for a King,” I murmured and for a moment I was sure I could see a crown hanging between the trees ahead of us. But when I looked closer it was a cabin. Not a crown at all.

  I laughed as I realised how stupid I’d been to think it was a crown, laughing and laughing until I could hardly breathe. I doubled over, clutching my waist and my helper yanked me back into their arms.

  There was a crowd of dancers wearing black cloaks which covered their bodies and hid their faces, all waiting for us before the cabin with a huge fire burning between them.

  I was dropped on the wooden porch and the crowd started chanting forcefully. I frowned at them as their words started to chip away at my mask.

  They were pulling me apart, making me look at my grief again and holding my head in place so that I couldn’t turn away from it.

  There was nothing and no one apart from the abyss echoing endlessly inside me.

  I saw my brother, the last time I’d ever seen him when he left me to come back to the academy after Christmas. He pulled me in for a hug and I didn’t hold on long enough, pushing him back and telling him not to get glitter in my hair.

  Oh how I missed finding glitter in my hair.

  I’d cried alone in my bunk for an hour the first time I’d brushed it and found nothing glimmering in my hairbrush. I’d missed Cardinal Magic and told the professor I’d gotten sick. And I had. In my heart. And my soul.

  I was so sick that I knew it would kill me. This grief was a cancer, slowly eating away at everything I used to be.

  Sometimes it seemed like I forgot about it but that wasn’t so. Because every move I made, every action I took came back to him. To this lie I was telling by pretending not to know him. To this injustice that had taken place when someone had killed him. Forced him to take that fucking drug. Just like they’d forced me to take it now too.

  My heart was still beating too fast and I knew it was the Killblaze soaking through my limbs. There was no cure for it. Fae drugs were made to be immune to healing magic. So when my heart finally reached the climax of this desperate race it was running, I knew it could only end one way for me.

  Death.

  And maybe that wasn’t so bad. Gareth would be there waiting for me in the stars. I’d have him back and maybe I’d be whole again in the afterlife. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

  A thump sounded beside me and I turned my head as a sandy haired boy stumbled to his feet on the porch to my right. Beyond him was a girl with raven hair who was laughing so hard she could barely breathe. She reminded me of Cindy Poo and in an instant I was laughing too.

  She’d said it. Fucking said her name was Cindy Poo in front of everyone!

  I didn’t even know how I’d managed to make that happen, but it would go down in history as one of the greatest accomplishments of my life. Maybe one of the last ones too...

  The chanting stopped suddenly and I looked up as footsteps approached me. The cabin door opened in front of me and the trees billowed in a wind I couldn’t feel as a loud creak sounded the arrival of the person we’d been waiting for.

  A robed figure drew nearer, pausing before the boy on my right and running their gaze over all three of us.

  It was definitely a woman, though I couldn’t see anything of the face beneath the hood which was drawn up to conceal them. But everything about their bulky frame and broad shoulders told me it was a man...or had I thought it was a woman? I frowned as I tried to figure it out again but the more I looked at them the less sure I was; they were curvy then tall, thin then short, broad then slight. Everything and nothing all at once. I didn’t know if it was the Killblaze or some magic they’d cast to conceal themselves but each time I tried to figure it out I only felt more confused.

  “Do any of you poor, lost souls wish to offer your power up to the light?” he asked, his voice soft and lilting, utterly feminine.

  For a moment I caught sight of the face beneath the hood and gasped as I recognised Gabriel.

  “Your sacrifice must be given freely. You must choose death and give your powers to me as you pass for the magic to cleanse you. And if you do, it will banish all of your pain, erase your heartache, consume your grief...and leave you pure and free of it in the afterlife,” he said. I blinked and realised it wasn’t Gabriel at all; it was Ryder.

  His hand reached out towards me and I almost took it as the pain in me welled up sharply. But I hesitated as I searched for the tattoos which should have been on his knuckles, shaking my head in confusion as I realised it wasn’t Ryder either. It was Laini...or Cindy Poo...Principal Greyshine...Leon...Gareth-

  My heart squeezed as my brother looked down at me and the tears I’d been fighting fell free, running down my cheeks in an endless flow.

  “I’m sorry,” I choked out. “I should have seen that you were in trouble. I should have done more-”

  I reached for him but he was moving away from me to the sandy haired boy beside me who was murmuring something over and over again.

  My heart thundered in my ears but I managed to tune it out for a moment to listen to him.

  “Make it stop, I’m ready, I’m ready, I’m ready-”

  My lips parted as I took in his broken expression and the hooded figure leaned closer eagerly.

  “You must make the sacrifice yourself,” she breathed, egging him on, encouraging him to take his life.

  “Don’t,” I gasped, wondering if I was imagining this or if it was real. Because so much seemed so strange to me right now that I just didn’t know. And with that poison in my veins it could be a long time before I found out. If I ever did at all - I was still almost certain I was going to die once the drug ran its course.

  “Thank you,” the boy breathed, opening his palm and growing a coil of vines with his earth magic which reached up and wrapped themselves around his throat.

  I stared on as they began to squeeze, his own magic choking him while he did nothing to stop it. A euphoric smile lit his face and the cloaked figure groaned as the rest of the crowd started chanting again.

  Their words were spoken in no language I knew, but they made the hairs stand to attention along my flesh, fear coursing through me in a wave.

  “Stop it!” I demanded, lurching towards the sandy haired boy, meaning to make him stop if he wouldn’t listen, but I somehow managed to throw myself backwards instead of towards him.

  I fell off of the porch and down to the ground on my back. The breath was driven from my lungs as pain speared along my spine.

  I wheezed and laughed and thrashed about, unsure what the hell to even do with my body.

  Hands clutched at me, one after another, more and more of them trying to force me to my feet. I screamed, smacking and kicking and biting as I fought to get their scaly claws off of me.

  They stumbled aside as I managed to use my Vampire strength and more than a few of them cursed and howled as I broke bones and drew blood.

  The crowd parted and I was suddenly looking right into the eyes of the sandy haired boy. He lay on the porch, eyes wide and unseeing as death stole him away on swift wings.

  My eyes widened in shock and I looked beyond him, finding the robed figure there, moaning in pleasure as a soft green light seemed to spill from the corpse and into him. There was something about the way the light moved that stirred up recognition in me. When unformed, Earth magic was that colour, the colour of nature and life. I’d seen it conjured by earth students in class. Somehow, that monster was stealing his magic in the moment of his death. />
  This was more than just some crazy cult. It was the darkest of black magic. The kind that was only ever whispered about in shadowy corners before being hastily hushed and forgotten. The kind that shouldn’t have existed at all. Because the root of it was so evil that no one who touched it could survive with their soul intact.

  My mind spun to Gareth and my hammering heart sped up further still.

  I cried out, a savage snarl leaving my lips as I leapt at the figure, fully intending to rip them limb from limb. Because suddenly I knew. I knew. That this was the King who’d killed my brother. And I was going to tear him into pieces with my bare hands or die trying.

  Before I could get close, a missile of fire crashed into me, knocking me back down into the crowd. Someone else cast vines to hold me and a shower of frozen daggers shot at me next.

  I threw an arm up, scattering the ice blades with a whip of wind and whooping in triumph. But still more of the cult threw magic at me to keep me down.

  This wasn’t right. Fae fought one on one for their position, never like this. All of them stood against me as I battled the fog of Killblaze which clouded my mind.

  More fire flew my way and I screamed as it came crashing right for my head.

  Before it could reach me, a torrent of water slammed down over my body, dousing the flames and making my skin come alive. It was like the wetness I could feel was the result of a thousand kisses against my flesh instead of water.

  I tipped my head back to the moon as the cool wind blew over me and for a moment, clarity prevailed and I tried to shake my head to clear it of the drug once and for all.

  I looked around just as black wings sailed overhead and my hammering heart reached a terrifying crescendo. It didn’t matter that I was fighting. Because I couldn’t win against the Killblaze. It had me in its grasp and I could tell I wasn’t going to survive it.

  I threw my hands out as more magic was aimed my way and cast a shockwave of air to slam out from me, launching the full weight of my power into the blow.