Embracing Destiny

by Hutchins, Amelia

  I landed hard, falling on a rotting corpse before I pushed off the ground, staring at piles of bodies in varying states of decay. “What kind of idiot listens to the voices in a pit of death?” My hands balled tightly into fists at my sides, and I closed my eyes.

  I moved to sift and opened my eyes, noting I was still in the pit. I peered into the dark cave that sat inside the hole I’d dropped into. The hair on my neck rose as something watched me from the shadows, peering at me as if it saw directly through me.

  My feet stopped before I could enter the cave, spinning around in a circle as I took in the strange writing on the walls, written in crusted blood. More corpses sat staring lifelessly up at the sky, as if they’d wished to feel the sun on their flesh, even in death.

  “Not good,” I stated to the dead.

  I turned away from them, rushing toward the light. The hair on my neck rose again as I felt eyes continuing to watch me. Edging away from the cave, I walked back to the center of the pit and stared up the moment I was back in the light fed by the opening of the hole in the middle of town. I released the breath I’d been holding. Ryder stared down at me, smiling. His men were beside him, peering down at where I stood.

  “Problem, Synthia?” he asked, studying me carefully.

  “Not at all,” I lied through chattering teeth as the sensation of being watched refused to lessen.

  “Good, because you’re staying here for a while,” he growled, inspecting me as his gaze burned with anger.

  “You’re an asshole,” I muttered. “You realize I can climb out, right? That was a requirement to enter your fake palace. Don’t you recall my first mission, where I had to climb the walls of the Dark Tower to get your crown?”

  “Try it. Go ahead. We’ll wait.” Crouching on to his haunches, he continued staring down at me with a wicked grin as his men looked cautiously from him to me.

  I cracked my neck and jumped to the first outstretch of dirt, only for my hands to slip through it. I surveyed the pit, noting it was all fucking dirt. I moved to the next part, jumping and digging my nails into the earth, hoisting myself up before I continued to the next jagged ledge. I did it several times before I reached halfway up the steep climb, and pain shot through me, forcing me to lose my grip suddenly.

  I turned my body mid-air, intending to sift, only to remember I couldn’t. I landed hard in the dirt, the wind leaving my lungs as my body crumpled. Whimpering, I fought against the pain rushing through me as I started to sit up to pull air into my lungs. More pain rushed through me, forcing me to curl into a ball as a bloodcurdling scream ripped from my lips. I coughed, unable to bring air into my lungs as blood expelled from my lips.

  “This is not simply a cave; it’s a cage built by your mother to hold her offspring. Do you know why this cage held the Seelie within it for so long, Synthia? It was created with god magic to imprison Danu’s creations she deemed a failure—or just didn’t like them—locked up and hid them from the world forever. You are hers, are you not?”

  “Ryder,” I whispered through the immense pain, waiting for the spell assaulting me to subside. I rolled onto my back, staring up at him as the taste of blood coated my lips and mouth. “Don’t do this.”

  “I’m not; you are. Maybe if you have enough time alone, you will come to terms with what you are. Your old life is gone. You’re still a caterpillar, and you need to be a butterfly. A caterpillar doesn’t become a butterfly just because it grows wings. It hides in the darkness and doesn’t come out until it has finally grown its wings and knows how to use them. Grow some fucking wings, Synthia. This world needs you. Your old world is gone for you. It won’t accept you now, and Faery is begging for you to just take what it is offering.”

  “I don’t know how to remove my humanity!” I hissed, getting to my feet to stare up at him. “I don’t know what to do to get rid of it. I can’t just cut it out, nor can I just remove it!”

  “I can’t do this for you, Pet. I can’t take it from you. You won’t let me.”

  “I won’t stay here,” I warned him.

  “Yes, you will. Only the most powerful of beings can enter this prison and escape it, and no one will come for you. The only people who know where you now reside are us. I’ll be back in a few days to see if my pretty little caterpillar has sprouted her wings.”

  “What if I’m no longer me anymore?”

  He stared down at me through narrowed eyes, smirking as his jaw ticked. “I have loved you through every change you’ve been through. I have been at your side regardless of what you became. We’ll survive this too, sweet girl.”

  “What if I am supposed to keep it? I’m the Goddess of the Fae, the people. I was taken to the humans to learn compassion. To learn that faults are normal. I know how to forgive and how to be understanding. That is my humanity. You wouldn’t have cared if those children died, Ryder. My job is to protect our people.”

  “But you can’t, because you won’t shed your skin and allow yourself to accept the land. We have stood by and let you do it your way. You assumed all you had to do was show up to the party and be here. That’s not how Faery works. You know that, and yet you still have relinquished nothing to become what you are meant to be.

  “Now, we do it my way. I told you, I won’t lose anyone else because my wife can’t give up her hold on her old life. You transformed. You are a part of this world, but you can only touch upon basic god magic. You create beautiful palaces, though, but that isn’t your job.

  “Zahruk trained you to fight, and Ristan helped him. Dristan, well, he taught you our history. He told you of the changes we go through, what the gods go through, and you weren’t listening. I played your dutiful, loving husband, and all you did was get comfortable. You think I’m that sweet? I’m the asshole about to leave his pretty wife in a pit where the Seelie remained imprisoned for over a thousand years. I love you, woman. I love you enough to push you to do what this world and our children need from you.”

  “If you leave me here, don’t come back!” I shouted hoarsely.

  “See, there it is, that pesky human emotion that drives you. You’re quick to anger, and you get mad, but then you forgive just as easily. This world will eat you alive. I’d stay away from the walls and the shadows.” He dusted off his hands, staring down at me with a look of uncertainty before he vanished.

  “Ryder!” I screamed, listening as it echoed through the caves. I peered around unhurriedly, taking in the surrounding shadows. “Stay away from the shadows? It’s all fucking shadows! I will file for divorce, you dick!” I slid down the dirty wall, trying to glamour a coat over my chilled body, only to realize I couldn’t.

  No magic, no sifting, and I couldn’t climb out. Asher had gotten out somehow, so what had he said had happened to free him? Danu had died, and the prison weakened. That was just great because I was also weak from running away from my husband, wasting precious magic to do so.

  I couldn’t get past the middle of the pit’s opening, and Ryder, that dick had watched me writhing in pain without an ounce of emotion in his pretty eyes. A noise sounded from deep within the tunnel. I peered into the darkness as something beckoned me to enter. I had no weapons, no magic, and I was as useless as a fucking mortal, which I’d never even been before.

  “When I die here, you’re going to feel like such a dick,” I whispered to the opening as hot, angry tears pricked against my eyes. The noise sounded again, and I turned, watching as a pair of glowing eyes peered at me from the velvety darkness of the shadows.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Ryder

  Three days had passed since I’d left Synthia in the Seelie prison. And each day she’d plead for help, begging me to come get her. I’d listened to her, the tone of her voice, the desperation that she felt.

  I’d struggled, fighting the need to go get her out, knowing I couldn’t. If she didn’t change
, she’d become something I had to protect. I knew she was strong enough, but she wasn’t evolving. She was content with the way things were, but this war wouldn’t care about her comforts, and eventually, we’d lose.

  I was done fucking losing. I’d pushed her to change, being the prick that forced her to deal with the situation. She’d fucking allowed Bilé to walk into our home and take our people from us. I wouldn’t lose anyone else.

  Dristan. Fuck. My baby brother was gone. He’d been here to protect her, and she’d failed them all with her inability to evolve past being a basic fucking fae when she was a goddess. It didn’t matter what we told ourselves, or the lies we fed each other to assuage the guilt. The only thing that stubborn woman had to do was fucking reach for the power Faery was offering. She could have met the land halfway, and she’d have ended this war.

  “What about the gardens?” Zahruk asked. I creased my brow at the idea of the mages being hidden there.

  “Aohdan searched them a few days ago. He found no evidence of them there,” I replied absently.

  I studied the map, slowly moving my gaze to the location of the prison. For three nights, I’d returned, sitting upon the ledge to watch her sleeping below. She was filthy, covered in dirt and grime, and she shivered from the cold. Besides that, she looked lost.

  Her pretty eyes opened and searched for me, and then her pleading began anew. The desperation in her voice damn near destroyed my will. I almost caved and took her from that place, but that wouldn’t help her or Faery.

  I couldn’t change who she was, nor could I force it. She had to decide which world she belonged to: Faery or the human world. Synthia had to let one go because she was losing both while trying to hold on to each. Clinging to the sliver of humanity bonding her to that world was causing this one to die. I told her I was rearranging Faery because I couldn’t make myself tell her that her refusal to accept the land was triggering it to evolve as it silently died.

  Synthia didn’t do anything half-assed, and yet this time, she was about this. She was refusing to accept Faery, to reach out and take her place in our world, and now it had cost us the lives of people we loved.

  I wasn’t meant to love her. I knew something such as me would never hold something as pure and beautiful as her, yet I reached for it, and she allowed me to take her. It was supposed to be simple: Find the Blood Heir, breed her, and walk away with the child who would take down Danu.

  Only Danu’s blood could fight her, and it had to be a daughter. I’d forced it to fucking happen, pushing and pulling pieces into play to ensure Synthia was born and born for me.

  Synthia was everything I wanted, everything I needed. Then she’d gone and died while having my babies, and everything changed. I changed. I grew weak because I wanted her smiles and to watch her eyes light up when I said something sweet. But fuck, no part of me was sweet.

  I wasn’t that guy, and deep down, she knew it and had stayed anyway. She enjoyed me being rough, owning her flesh as she screamed for me. Syn was a rare breed of women, one that allowed ownership behind closed doors. She let me dominate her, fucking destroying her until we were both exhausted.

  The woman had thwarted my plans and invaded the enemy’s guild with my own army at her back, and she’d fought for me. She’d come to save me, thinking me weak enough to be taken, but that wasn’t the case. I’d shut off the frequency for communication, allowing me to talk to everyone without telling anyone what I was doing. I couldn’t, not with the mages being able to impersonate us or speak on the same mind waves. I’d gone in there without a single person knowing because I knew, no matter what the witches did, they couldn’t kill me.

  Synthia sacrificed our child to save me, and I hated it. I hated that she’d thought me pathetic because I’d grown comfortable around her. I wasn’t excused since I didn’t tell her my plans, but who the fuck thought she’d bring my army of the horde on her heels into her own world for me?

  I’d gotten hard the moment she’d reached through the beast and ripped me back to the surface. I assumed she’d reached for her powers, but she hadn’t. Ristan said she needed time. She fucking didn’t. Synthia had dug in and was holding onto both worlds while we lost this fucking war. I’d been patient with her, but now I was done.

  We no longer had the luxury of waiting her out. We’d shown her love, made her feel at home, taught her everything she needed to know about our world, and she chose us. The problem was that the land felt her hesitation, and as the God of Faery, I felt it too. I felt her pulling back when she got too comfortable.

  I’d felt her indecision to accept what was right there before her. I felt her need to tighten her fists and pull her hands back the moment the land offered her power. Worse, I’d felt her desire to hold on to that other world, and her need to go back to it because she felt as if it was where she belonged.

  “Ryder, where are you? I need you,” she whispered inside my head as if she was in trouble. My head tilted, listening to the surrounding sounds, but hearing nothing. “Please, I’m not alone here. I need you!”

  I turned it off, cutting her out as no noise followed her claim. Being cold and uncomfortable wasn’t something she actually required to be saved from. Being mortal and not able to reach for her powers was a solid reminder that she needed us as much as we needed her. The alone time should remind her of the family she’d come to love as much as we loved her.

  I wasn’t asking her to forget her friends. I was asking her to choose Faery. It didn’t mean forgetting where she had come from, or losing who she was. It meant allowing this world to be a part of her, too, and she was holding us at arm’s length.

  She asked the land to accept our children, and yet she hasn’t received it in return. She was ours. She was born here and created to save this world, even if I had manipulated it a bit.

  The gods played with us, using us against one another when they fought. They’d knowingly changed us into monsters, putting us into a world they created, and when they got pissed, we died. The world screamed with their rage and their unhappiness, and then it just stopped.

  They’d abandoned us, and it had been calm for a while. Then, just like that, the world started to reject us. We had to figure out how to save ourselves, so I set the plan into motion to save our world and rid us of the gods permanently. I just needed something that Danu had created with a piece of herself to wield against her. I’d needed something lethal, like me. Someone who could fight with me against the Goddess of Faery, and help me take back our world.

  I never anticipated the spitfire that entered my life with a perfect ‘no’ on her pretty pink lips. I never expected to want Synthia, but I did. I’d watched her, learning her while she slowly fell in love with the young enforcer who slid between her thighs and almost wet himself as he took her virginity. A disgraceful waste of a good fuck, but she hadn’t complained. She never did.

  Synthia was a fighter. Her entire world had been centered on the guild and hunting down my kind, and she did it well. Then she bumped into me headfirst and told me to get fucked.

  So, I’d erased myself from her mind, and did the only thing I could. I’d started planning to fuck her hard. That little wisp of a girl told me, the fucking Horde King, to go get fucked. She signed herself up for being the one I fucked that day.

  I could have taken her then, spreading those pretty thighs wide, pounding into her dripping wet flesh, which I could smell. Her lips curled into a naughty little smile as she’d stepped back, lifted her middle finger, and told me to get fucked. Then, she’d turned and swayed her pretty little ass out of the alley I’d forced her into, wanting to see her response to what I am.

  I’d feasted for days, unable to get the picture of her perky little ass out of my mind as it sauntered away from me. I’d been gluttonous with the need to do just that: fuck that tight little body right out of my system. The problem was that she wasn’t the type
of woman you walked away from.

  Her eyes shone with an inner beauty that couldn’t be faked. When she smiled, my fucking cold, dead heart thumped for the first time in memory. She made me want things, things I’d resigned myself to never have, and then the bitch died on me.

  Synthia had ripped the same heart she’d forced to beat out of my chest when she died. She’d given me children, the first triplets in the history of the entire race. She called them beasties because he’d ensured her womb would accept what he gave. She’d roared for him too, and he’d purred for her, sensing his mate in Synthia.

  She’d come back to us, but I’d already tasted loss and knew I never wanted to be in a world without her. I also knew if she didn’t wake up and take her powers, we might not make it through this war in one fucking piece.

  We should have been enough. But then she’d started pulling away again. She started planning a new guild, and her entire soul pulled from us as she focused on rebuilding it. I’d sent funds, helped where I could, and threw everything I could throw at her pet project to make it move faster so that she’d come back to us.

  The guild was built, running, and she still hadn’t returned. I’d told Alden we needed her, and he’d said she’d been told to come home, to prepare for war. He’d written that shit out for her, but she still wasn’t ours, or she would have returned sooner.

  I’d played my cards, and she’d tossed them back at me. I’d told her the truth, and she’d pulled further away. She kept things from me. There had been simple things that she could have told me, such as the fucking Goddess of Chaos was playing games in our fucking house. As it so happened, I was aware of it the entire time.