Wild Lands (Savage Lands Book 2)

by Stacey Marie Brown

  When it stopped, I stood on a field. No moon was out, but the sky glowed with vibrant colors, swirling and weaving like the aurora borealis. The air snapped with magic; the countryside was stuffed full of figures battling. Screams and sounds of metal clanking shredded the night sky. I whipped around to take in the chaos, fear shooting up into my chest.

  Creatures I had never even seen before tore into each other, and birds the size of planes flew in the sky. Creatures as little as brownies and as huge as giants dotted the landscape. The night rang with death, the field drenched in blood.

  In the distance, it looked as if there was a curtain of energy that crackled and sputtered with light, holes forming in it. Behind it I saw an outline of a castle. It looked exactly the same as some of the drawings and pictures I had seen in books of the Fae War, of Queen Aneira’s castle, the Seelie leader before the wall between the worlds fell twenty years ago.

  I was there. The night Earth and the Otherworld became one.

  The night I was born.

  I could feel guts squishing between my toes, smell the bitter odors of blood and fear, hear every clank of metal, every shriek of death. People were dying right in front of me. Everything was so real. So vivid, overwhelming me.

  “Let me out,” I spoke to the book, but nothing happened. “I want out!”

  Why would it bring me here?

  “Warwick?” a man boomed, spinning me around. I gasped, my gaze landing on a familiar figure.

  Ash.

  Dressed in layers of dark clothes, his hair was longer than he wore it now and tied up in a knot. Most of his face was covered in blood. Carrying a sword, his belt dripped with more knives and guns.

  The guy next to him was tall, lean, dark-skinned, wearing the same outfit, with sharp but pretty features. There was something familiar about him I couldn’t quite place.

  “Where the fuck did he go? What did he tell you?” Ash asked his comrade, but the guy didn’t seem to hear him, his eyes moving frantically over the terrain. “Janos? Hey!”

  Janos’s head whipped to Ash. In a gesture I wasn’t expecting, Ash reached out, touching the man’s cheek gently. “It’s okay, we’ll find him.”

  “Don’t lie to me, Ash,” he muttered. “I can read your face. They caught him, didn’t they? How could he just run off without us? If they finally found him, they will show him no mercy.”

  “Come on, this is Warwick we’re talking about.” I could sense a deep intimacy in the way Ash’s fingers rubbed the other man’s cheek. “The guy is tougher than anyone I know. He’ll be fine. We’ll find him. Okay?”

  Janos nodded, pulling away from his touch, his Adam’s apple bobbing. He sniffed in and pulled his chin up high, readying himself to go forward. Looking regal. Refined.

  Holy fuck.

  In one action, I saw someone else in Janos’s face. My jaw dropped in shock.

  Madam Kitty.

  There were rumors of transgender people in the Savage Lands. But in Leopold? There weren’t even whispers of them. I hadn’t even known what the word meant until my late teens. When I met Ms. Kitty, I didn’t even consider she was trans.

  I had been so sheltered within the walls of HDF.

  “Come on!” Ash tugged on Janos’s arm, giving me no time to think more about it as I followed them through the combat. They sliced into bodies and fought as they moved over the field swiftly.

  Gunshots volleyed past, and small bombs dropped from the giant birds in the air, spurting dirt and flesh into the sky, landing on me like hail. Ash and Janos moved with skill and partnership through the battle, ascending a small hill. They came to a stumbling stop, my feet slowing next to them, their eyes latched on to something below.

  “Warwick!” Janos screamed before he took off, running to a large object lumped on the grass. Janos’s legs gave out, and he dumped himself onto the damp earth next to the form, his body curling over the burned mess, a sliver of a face showing through the scorched blackness. “Noooo!”

  It took me a moment to put the pieces together. To recognize what I was seeing. Acid tore up my throat, and I covered my mouth, emotion punching me in the chest as vomit burned my esophagus.

  Warwick was that object. He told me the night at Kitty’s how he died, but to see it was a wholly different thing. The larger-than-life man was a distorted pile of vulture fodder. His neck twisted unnaturally, his huge build had mostly been burned down to the bone, clothes still smoldering, stabbed so many times his entire torso looked like he had been flayed open. The one eye that wasn’t charred stared emptily up at the sky.

  Dead.

  “Oh, gods.” I swallowed back more bile.

  Ash stood there, agony etched on his features, his frame swaying as if he was about to pass out.

  Janos sobbed in grief, bending over the corpse. “I’m so sorry. I failed you…” Touching Warwick’s face gently, he closed the one unburned lid. Janos’s fingers shook violently, lingering on the slice of Warwick’s face that still somewhat resembled a man.

  Like a zombie, Ash staggered up, dragging his weapon behind him and staring down at the remains of his friend.

  “Baszd meg,” he uttered, his expression twisting. “BASZD MEG!” A guttural bellow howled into the night, screamed up at the sky in sheer agony, burning my eyes with tears at his heartbreak.

  The atmosphere crackled and popped, the holes in the atmosphere growing bigger, and the castle no longer looked like it was being seen through a film as fairies, trolls, ogres, and other figures battled everywhere. Only a sliver of the wall was left between the two worlds.

  A pack of wolf-shifters came tearing over the land, snapping and ripping into everything it passed, getting closer to Ash and Janos.

  “Come on!” Ash yelled for Janos to move and fight, but Janos continued to weep over Warwick. Ash stomped over, yanking Janos up, bringing their faces close together.

  “He wouldn’t want us to die tonight too.” Ash held Janos’s face, their noses touching. “If you can’t fight for that, fight for him. We owe it to Warwick to track those fuckers down. Kill each and every one. Do what they did to him. I need you, Janos. I can’t avenge him without you.”

  Janos sucked in, nodding. They stepped away from each other, pulling out weapons, and turned straight into the mass of wolves, hacking and slicing at them, dissipating into the endless enemies coming.

  I didn’t follow, my feet timidly moving closer to the man on the ground. The brutal way he was murdered showed even more prominently up close.

  I bit my lip until I tasted blood, lowering myself down next to him. Even if I knew he was alive in my reality, seeing him here was gutting. Heart-wrenching. Wrong. Supposedly the half-breed fae died this night, and the legend rose from his ashes. I couldn’t imagine how he could come back from this. How was he alive now? There seemed no way.

  He had been burned to nothing, gutted, had his neck broken.

  No one came back from that.

  Not even fae.

  A deep panic at the idea he wouldn’t wake up this time drove into my gut like a drill. The terror of losing him trailed a tear down my cheek, building energy in my chest. The air hissed and sizzled, magic sparking at my skin.

  I couldn’t stop myself; my hand reached out for his cheek.

  My palm touched his singed skin as a loud crack filled the night. A lightning bolt struck the earth; earsplitting shouts and yowls echoed throughout the battlefield while blinding lights exploded near the castle.

  The last strands of the wall were falling.

  A whoosh of magic slammed through me like a tidal wave, the power shredding me so brutally, a gut-wrenching scream tore from my lungs. Tumbling me over Warwick, the energy plunged into me felt as though I was going to combust, my muscles shuddering violently.

  There was so much pain.

  I thought the book couldn’t hurt me.

  It whipped through me like spiked tails, lashing and spearing my insides, leaving me heaving for air and twitching as if I’d been electrocut
ed.

  Under my palms, Warwick’s lids burst open, and he heaved in a violent breath of life, his body convulsing. His blazing aqua eyes went straight on me.

  Looking directly into my eyes.

  Seeing me.

  Chapter 23

  With a shove, I felt myself being tossed back, the book yanking me out with a cry as blackness enveloped me.

  “Brexley?” I heard my name called from afar. “Brexley!”

  With a gasp, I opened my eyes, my lungs sucking in gulps of oxygen. Irises the color of moss peered down at me. Ash bent over me, his face filled with worry and awe.

  Blinking, it took me a few moments to realize where I was, my mind feeling like scrambled eggs. I laid on the ground, having fallen backward off the bench.

  “Are you okay?” Ash asked, his gaze searching me, making sure I was physically all right.

  “Damn, Fishy, you hit the ground like a wet sponge.” Opie leaped down next to me, Bitzy’s head bobbing around in the backpack, her tongue hanging out even more. “Splat!” He hit his hands together. “For a back dive, though, I can only give you a two. Your form sucked.”

  “Thanks,” I grumbled, trying to sit up, still grappling for air. Ash wrapped his hands around my arms and back, helping me sit.

  “You hurt anywhere? Anything feel torn?” He nodded at my wounds.

  “I don’t know.” My brain felt scattered, my skin still buzzing from the experience in the book, as if it really happened.

  He moved in closer to me, his fingers reaching for the T-shirt. “Do you mind?”

  “I was stripped and beaten in Halálház, used as a lab rat for both Killian and Istvan… so no, I don’t care.”

  Ash’s mossy eyes met mine, a sadness flicking through them.

  “Even more reason to ask.” His sentiment stirred emotion in my chest. Gently he lifted the shirt, frowning at the fresh bloodstains. “You pulled your stitches. Though this other one is healing remarkably fast.” His hand brushed the one in the middle of my chest. “Don’t move.” He got up, grabbed supplies off the table, and returned to me. With a light touch, he unwrapped the old dressing, cleaning the blood away.

  “What happened? The book showed you something, didn’t it? I’ve never seen it take to someone instantly. What did it show you?” His question brushed at my skin, his body really close to mine as he doctored up my wounds.

  Opie had moved to his side, rifling through the jars he pulled down, inspecting the swabs and cotton balls like he was already turning them into future outfits.

  “It kept me out today. It wouldn’t let me follow you. It’s never done that.” His eyes met mine, and all I could see was the man from the Fae War, covered in blood, deep pain cutting into his eyes as he howled into the night air over the loss of his friend.

  “You and Janos…”

  “What?” Ash jerked back, his eyes wide. “Janos… How-how do you know that name?”

  “Janos is Ms. Kitty, isn’t she?”

  Ash sucked in sharply. “What did the book show you?” I could see panic fluttering his chest, letting me know there were secrets he hoped I hadn’t seen.

  “The war twenty years ago. The night the wall fell. Warwick.” I cringed, shaking the bad memories away.

  His shoulders lowered, but his throat bobbed with emotion, focusing back on his duty. “That night still haunts me. Why would it take you there?”

  “Not sure.” I bit down as he finished cleaning the wound, grabbing the gauze. “Did you know I was born that night?”

  “What?” His chin lifted from his work, meeting my gaze, his eyes wide.

  I swallowed, my head bobbing. “The exact moment the barrier broke, my mother gave birth to me. She died right after. My father said her body couldn’t handle the traumatic stress of my birth and the flood of magic.”

  “She was human?”

  “Yes,” I answered automatically, then slouched back with a poignant sigh. “I mean… that’s what I assumed anyway. What Uncle Andris told me.”

  “But now you wonder?” He tied off the dressing.

  I tried several times to swallow. “I know something is different about me. Even if I’m not fae, I’m… I’m something.” The last part came out a whisper.

  “You are.” Ash’s voice went low too, his hand touching my jaw, pulling my face up to look at him. “You are definitely something.” His throat bobbed, and he tenderly stroked my cheek with his thumb. The same gesture he’d made with Janos. “I can’t explain it. You are a light, but both life and death buzz around you. Drawing us all in like insects to honey.”

  “Honey.” I chortled. “Never been compared to that before.”

  He smiled.

  “Will you help me?” I felt scared and fragile, letting myself soak in his tenderness. He seemed like someone I could trust. A friend. “Find out what I am?”

  His eyes searched mine, his hand still on my face. “Of course.”

  I felt the sudden hum, the change of air, but it wasn’t from the guy next to me. The door burst open, turning our heads to the entrance with a jolt.

  Warwick strode in, his gaze quickly taking in the scene between us. My skin still prickled where Ash touched me.

  Ash dropped his hand, standing up, but it was too late. The rush of rage swirled around, digging deep. Warwick’s presence coiled in on me.

  “Move fast, don’t you, princess.” His voice growled in my ear, though he still stood in the doorway, silent as he closed the door from across the room. “Your fan club is getting rather large, don’t you think? You sure you have room for another?”

  “Fuck you,” I snarled out loud, reaching out for Ash’s hand to help me up. “Wasn’t like that. Though I don’t need to explain myself to you.”

  Ash’s head snapped back and forth, as though missing what I was responding to.

  “Don’t you?” Warwick’s ghost breathed against my neck. I felt teeth dragging across my shoulder, heating my body. I narrowed my lids on the real man, trying not to shiver at the sensation wrapping around my nerves, my adrenaline pumping. By now, I should have been used to him, but I wasn’t. He entered, and he demolished everything else around me. Overpowering. Taking. Consuming.

  “She pulled her stitches.” Ash forced me to sit again, ignoring the glare Warwick shot him. “I was cleaning and rewrapping it.”

  “Is that what they’re calling it?” Warwick muttered, making a sound in his throat, yanking his gaze from me, moving farther into the room, dropping a bag on the table.

  “What’s that?” I glanced at it.

  “Thought you’d want clothes.” He motioned to the bag, his irritation still curling around me. He had changed back into his own garments, fitting his frame like a glove.

  “You got me clothes?” I opened the bag, seeing cargo pants and a T-shirt, knickers, and a sports bra. “Was this at Kitty’s?”

  “No.” He strolled to a small table, picking up a bottle and pouring a glass of brown liquid.

  Warwick was someone you had to learn to read because he gave so little away. One-word answers would drive most people insane if you weren’t paying attention.

  “Stole them?” Without moving or opening my mouth from the bench, I brushed the back of his arm. His back muscles tightened at my invisible contact.

  “Does it matter?” he muttered over his shoulder at me, downing the drink.

  Actually, it was the equivalent of getting me flowers, maybe even better, since the clothes were useful. He didn’t ask Rosie or one of the girls to gather me some items; he got them himself.

  I fought a smile as I tugged out the sports bra.

  “Not sure I can wear this for a while.” My ribs and wounds ached at the thought of anything binding them.

  “All the better.” He flipped around, leaning against the table, his aqua eyes burning into me as he guzzled another large mouthful.

  I met his gaze, energy ping-ponging between us, my skin breaking out in bumps.

  “A kurva eletbe.” Fucking hell. As
h exhaled, running his hands through his hair. “And I’m supposedly the one with the overpowering sexual energy. Will you two fuck and get it over with?”

  “Oh, is it happening now?” Opie darted out from the jars he was procuring, half-dressed in cotton balls and strips of gauze. “Bitzy would want me to wake her up for it. Do you need a vacuum?”

  “A vacuum?” I turned to Opie.

  “What?” He took in everyone staring at him, then started to chuckle forcefully. “Oh. Yeah. I was totally kidding. Why would you need one of those, right?” His cheeks flushed.

  Chirp. Bitzy lifted her head, her fingers rubbing her ears.

  “Oh, now you wake up and add your opinion.”

  Chirp.

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” He huffed, glaring over his shoulder. “No one was asking you anyway.”

  Chirp.

  Bitzy glared back. “It was a misunderstanding. How many times do I have to tell you that?”

  “My head hurts.” Ash rubbed his head.

  Chirpchirpchirp! Bitzy pointed her middle finger at the tree fairy.

  Opie’s eyes widened at Ash. “Wow, she is pissed at you.”

  “Thank fuck, it’s not me for once,” I muttered. Bitzy flung out her two middle fingers at me, making me snort. “Ahhh, everything is right in the world again.”

  “Why is she mad at me?” Ash held out his arms. “And why do I give a shit?” He seemed bewildered.

  “Welcome to my world.” Warwick sniggered, downing the rest of the drink.

  “She’s not feeling so good right now,” Opie replied.

  “How is it my fault? She ate my mushrooms.” Ash pointed back at her.

  Chirpchirpchirpchirpchirp….

  “Wow.” I breathed as Bitzy went off on him. “You don’t even want to know what she just called you.”

  “You understand it?”

  “Gods, I hope not.” I leaned my forehead onto the table. Again, I didn’t understand her exact words, but I certainly felt her meaning, and I was pretty sure Ash should sleep with one eye open tonight.