I sat for two hours more. Watching memories of her play like a reel through the bowl. I dismissed the four or so men who’d swayed drunkenly out of the pub in the interim. After waiting nearly two and a half hours, I finally saw him.
He was smooth shaven, with a face that would never truly look mature. Shaggy ice-blond hair shielded his eyes but could not entirely conceal the albino pink of them. His gait was unsteady from far too much drink.
Slipping the bowl into an infinity sack roped on to my chrome bike, I kept just far enough back that he would not notice me following, but close enough not to lose sight of him.
The man behaved nervously, taking a winding trail that made complete sense in its lack of it. He was trying to throw trackers off his scent. This was a man hiding secrets.
My lip curled as I imagined this man’s hands on my wife’s body, imagined him lost in the haze of her siren’s lure, thrusting deep between her thighs as she screamed out in pain.
A siren’s touch was like a drug or infection that went so far into the bones it was forever impossible to stop the cravings. Those so afflicted lived only to touch and touch again, burning for that next hit that would temporarily assuage the lust. But it was never enough. That was why being a siren was so damned dangerous. It was why Shayera had gone to such pains to cover most every inch of her body before she’d come to live with me permanently as man and wife.
As demone, I was more immune than most, but even I thrilled to the delicious sting of her body. It was not a craving for her flesh that made me run to her, however. It was love of the very purest kind. I would kill this man for thinking he could dare take her from me.
Ahead loomed a thicket of trees and rocky outcroppings. My heart raced, realizing we neared our destination, as his steps finally slowed. Somewhere close was my wife.
I sucked in a trembling breath, furling and unfurling my fists, reminding myself that I was no beast, but rather a thinking, rational intellectual.
At one point, the male glanced over his shoulder, forcing me to seek shelter behind the thick trunk of a tree, cursing beneath my breath because I was sure he’d caught sight of me.
I wasn’t afraid of him, but I needed him to lead me to his lair, dungeon, or wherever the bloody blazes he kept her. Until I knew where she was, I could not afford to tip my hand.
He paused for so long that I was prepared for him to turn back and come find me. He had seen me. This I knew. Relief washed through my bones when I heard his unintelligible mutter and the snap of twigs as he marched forward once again.
A terrible grin curled my lips. If she begged me not to kill him, the male might live through the night. But if my Shayera said nothing, this male’s days were over.
Counting silently to three, I finally peered around the trunk. He was several yards ahead and brushing at what looked like a cascading waterfall of ivy covering massive gray boulders.
Heart banging like a drum in the cage of my chest, I forced myself to stand still and not run up behind him and slit his throat for what he’d done. I was sure now it was my wife in those caves. Not an ounce of me thought otherwise.
So when the male finally revealed the entrance to his lair, I snapped. Rushing him like a thought on a breeze, I shoved him violently against the rocks, knocking loose a shelf of shale above him. He cried out, swatting at my hands, which were now fisted into his shirt. My form flickered in and out as I fought to stay looking human.
“Where is she? Where’s my wife?” I snapped, shoving my face toward his until our noses bumped. Spittle flew onto his lips and the sides of his face.
The whites of his eyes grew large, and he reeked of terror. The bitter tang of it slid out his pores, offending my nostrils.
“Wh-who?” he stammered.
I slapped him hard. A bloom of red blazed on his left cheek as I again slammed him into the boulder, loosening even more shards of rock. He cried out as the tiny projectiles pinged against his forehead. One of them was so sharp it even cut him over his left eye.
“You’re lucky I don’t snap your neck, you fecking bastard.” Allowing the demon flame to gather in my gaze, I snarled from deep inside my chest, wanting so damn bad to shift into my beast and bury my face in the soft meat of his belly. “You think I don’t know what you’ve done? I know. I read your terror like the lines of a book. Did you think you could hide her from me? Did you really think I wouldn’t find my bride?”
As I spoke, his high-pitched whimpers turned into whines of despair, and then he pissed himself, causing me to curl my upper lip in revulsion, but I wouldn’t let him go.
I could, on certain occasions, read not only emotions, but thoughts, if the person were in a heightened state of excitement, as this bloke was now. Shoving my fist so hard into his sternum that it forced his stomach concave, I peeled through the tough outer layer of his mind, that protective barrier that everyone had naturally. It wasn’t a conscious thing, but subconscious, a way for the body to protect the deepest, darkest secrets even the kindest of us would kill to conceal.
That barrier was normally much too thick to let me through, but when a person grew manic, when they grew upset and irrational with fear, that barrier thinned in spots, making it weaker, making it easier for me to slip through. I mentally probed his barrier until I found a weakness, like a rotten spot on fruit. A little shove was all it took to let me in.
I ransacked his mind, not bothering to be careful, not caring how much I scrambled his wiring. It was all about learning something. Anything. Maybe it was overkill. Maybe I could have just asked him. But I was at my wits end, and I wasn’t thinking straight. I wasn’t worried about right or wrong. The beast within me needed to hate, needed to feed on righteous fury and anger, and this man was a scapegoat. It was as simple as that.
But once I found his darkness, once I exposed his sin, the only thing I could do was shake my head and moan softly over and over.
“No. No, this cannot be. This cannot.”
I’d seen his demons, and they were hideous.
The siren chained beneath our feet wasn’t his first. She wasn’t even his second or third. This man was a serial rapist. He took the women and used them all up, stole every bit of their magic from them, discarding them only once they were broken, or in some cases, dead from the trauma.
“Please. Please,” he sobbed as gobs of drool and mucus slid down his face. “I won’t do it again. Please. I just couldn’t help my—”
Something on my face must have shocked him into silence.
His voice broke through my shock. My eyes met his pink ones. Tears streamed unchecked down my cheeks. The siren below was not my Shayera. None of them had been. The coldness that spread through my blood felt like the breath of death.
There are moments in life that, when you look back on them, shame you for the person you became, for the monster that gripped you, that turned you from a thinking person into one run purely on instinct alone. I wasn’t sure this would be one of those moments for me though.
I did not think as I wrapped my hand around his neck. Did not think as he gasped and pleaded, tearing at my wrists with his hands, clawing me and drawing blood. Did not think as his eyes bulged, as his fight became less and less, as he finally wilted in my arms, his skin gone completely blue. I did not release him until every last drop of air was expelled from his body, and his lungs would breathe no more.
I’d killed him.
I flexed my hands. Someday, his death might haunt me, though I doubted it. As I stared down upon the frozen mask of terror, the only thing I knew with certainty at that moment was that, if nothing else, I’d stopped him from hurting anyone else ever again.
The siren addiction had become his demon. This man would have never stopped. Not ever. I was no hero. I’d just killed a person in cold blood. But I would sleep well without that scum on this earth.
A sudden wind rolled past me, bringing with it the sweetness of wildflower perfume. Shayera loved her flowers. I squeezed my eyes shut. That gaping hole in
my chest only continued to grow bigger and larger. Turning on my heel, I walked into the cave, following the tracks the now-cooling body had left behind.
I might be a killer, but I was no monster. I would never leave the captive siren here, never leave her caged and trapped like an animal. Now several feet in, I heard the faint scratches of a body shuffling back on its heels, though she made no other noise.
Every step felt heavy as lead. My lungs ached as they forced me to breathe in and out. When I finally stepped into the darkened alcove, I immediately smelled the stench of her waste.
How long had she been here?
Turning toward the wall, I found a lone torch. Sliding it out, I quickly lit it with a bit of flame from my fingertip. She whimpered at the sudden blaze of light that cast a brownish-red flair all around us.
The moment my eyes latched on to her naked and unwashed body, I knew she was a siren. Even bloody and bruised as she was, there was a silvery sheen to her flesh that shamefully drew even my eyes.
Her hair was a blond rat’s nest crawling with bugs. Brown eyes the color of rich bark stared up at me with terror so blinding that it cut me to the quick. I averted my gaze, forcing myself to look only at her feet and nothing else, and cleared my throat.
“I’ve come to free you.” My voice was a hoarse whisper.
She said nothing, but her body language was obvious. She was hugging her knees, tucking her legs as close to her as possible. Every inch of her trembled, and I wished I could kill that bastard all over again.
This woman was not mine, and yet this fate could have been Shayera’s.
I swallowed hard, thinking about my mate. Needing to escape from this place, needing to run away, I quickly walked over to the girl, kneeling once I’d reached her side.
The effect was immediate.
She screamed, thrusting out her arms and curling so far into the rocks behind her that they cut through her back. I could smell the blood from where I knelt.
“Stop, female. Stop!” I hissed as I tossed up my hands in a non-combative gesture. “Do not harm yourself. I am not here to hurt you. I wish only to free you. Do you have a home? Family?”
She went completely still, whimpering, but no longer moving. Realizing I would have to look at her just long enough to settle her down, I released a quick breath and glanced at nothing but her eyes. Our gazes locked, but in my peripheral vision, I could see the flaring of her nostrils and the way her body continued to push away from me.
I never gave up magic willingly. Nothing was free in this life. Nothing. The only one who’d ever gotten everything from me was my wife. But if I tried to send this siren back to her home in this condition, I knew she would never survive the night. The feeling of violation, terror, and absolute fear would never again leave her. She would become a recluse, a fate most sirens just barely avoided simply by virtue of being what they were. Her life would be so hellacious that it would not be one death on my hands tonight, but two.
In a rare act of altruism, I reached out toward her cheek. She slapped at me, screaming and clawing, and even attempting to bite me at one point. But I didn’t need to do much.
Magic rolled through my voice as I commanded, “Shut your eyes.”
Immediately, she did, though her tremors did not cease. I shifted form from human Rumpel into the demon prince.
As a man, I would be affected by the touch of her skin, but as a demone male, I was almost completely immune. Still, once my finger finally grazed her cheek, I felt that spark of power flow from her to me, that liquid drop of ecstasy that made my breath just a little bit choppy.
But all I had to do was think of my Shayera, and I could breathe again, think again. My vivacious, red-headed beauty did for me as she’d always done. She soothed the raging beast.
Instead of taking magic from the siren, I gave her my power, pumping life back into her, giving her hope and joy, and erasing the tortures and traumas she’d suffered at the hand of a monster. The effect was immediate. Her shoulders slumped. Her body relaxed. Her muscles loosened. And then... she smiled, the look radiant and blazing, causing her own power to snap to life, forcing me to yank my hand back, fingertips scalded.
I clutched my hand to my chest. “Keep your eyes closed. Do not look upon me in this form, female. All I wish to know is where can I send you that you will feel safe?”
She didn’t stop to think. “The Howling Cliffs of Gondran.”
“Then picture it in your mind’s eye in exacting detail, down to the very flower at the base of your favorite tree.”
She sighed.
“Have you got it?”
She nodded.
“Good. Now, open your thoughts to me. Allow me to see what you see, and I will send you there.”
An immediate burst of flowers and the swish of tall grass and majestic conifers filled my mind’s eye. I nodded. “Good. Very good. Now relax, breathe, and do not fight me.”
Holding fast to the image she’d given me, I touched the pad of my thumb to her forehead. Like vapors of heat over a sandy dune, her image wavered, and then she was gone.
I stood alone in that cave, staring down at the filth that remained, the empty shackles, and the rotted bones of rodents she’d been forced to consume. Desolation swept through me. Gripping hold of the damp stone before me, I dug my fingers into the crags, ignoring the sharp slices to my palm. The metallic tang of my blood curled like acid beneath my nose.
Heart heavy, I held tight to that emptiness, clinging to it for all I was worth, terrified now to take the lid off whatever it was keeping me together. Turning on my heel, I marched out of there, never stopping to look back. The echoes of my footsteps rang out in the silence, making me shiver.
Even though the air smelled of sweetness, the second I finally broke free of the cave, my stomach heaved violently. But not for the siren I’d found. Not for the body of the male lying lifeless only a few yards away.
By the time I made it back to my bike, it all came up. I retched so violently it felt as though my spine might snap in two from the pressure, and when there was nothing left in my stomach, still the dry heaves shook me.
It was a full ten minutes before I was able to move again. Wiping my mouth with my wrist, I stared at the woods around me. I knew where I had to go. I already knew what had happened to my bride. But I also knew I would not fully accept this new reality unless I saw it for myself.
Straddling my bike, I revved the engine. It rumbled with fury as I roared out of there, sailing into the sky and heading for my Shayera’s family home.
My mind was blank of everything. I rode on autopilot. If someone had crossed my path, I wouldn’t have known it or remembered. I did not care that I’d likely spooked several fairies en route to wherever they were going.
There was an aching void within me, a frost beginning to spread deeper and wider. Soon I’d be nothing at all. There’d be no heat, no warmth left in me. But I could not afford to lose it completely.
So when I finally arrived at the Carons’ little hamlet and gazed at the blackened windows of what had once been a bustling and happy home, I felt my knees grow weak. I moved like a machine up to the tangled and wild hedge of what had once been Betty’s pride and joy—rose bushes transplanted from her homeland of Earth—but was now nothing more than thorns and brambles. That was the moment I finally accepted the truth.
Shayera wasn’t hiding. Shayera hadn’t been stolen. Shayera wasn’t even crying out for me. If she had been, I would have felt her. I would have known it. I would have found her hours ago.
No.
As the peppery laden breeze ruffled through my hair, I gazed into the darkness and allowed the full horror to become my true reality.
The Carons weren’t gone for the night. The house was in disrepair. Things I’d noticed when I’d come here earlier I now saw through different eyes—the cracked and peeling paint, the rotting steps, the rusty door hinges. Gerard had been meticulous in caring for their home.
There were no childre
n running out to greet me with happy smiles. No laughter. No smell of food or Betty’s warm hugs of greeting. They didn’t come out because they’d never been here. Not in this new world.
In fact, they may have never even met, which meant one thing.
My Shayera had never even been born.
Out in the street, where any man, woman, or beast could see me, I did something I would never do in front of plebs like them.
I wept the tears of a completely broken man.
~*~
Later, when I returned to the fairies, my worst fears were confirmed. Not that I’d needed them to say so for me to believe it, but every breath of hope fled my body when they did.
My objective now was clear. Find Gerard, find Betty, and make the impossible possible. Good thing I was in the business of making miracles happen.
Chapter 1
Gerard
I watched her, memorizing again every dip, every hollow, every brushstroke of perfection that created her face. The perfect Cupid’s-bow lip that formed words that sounded like magic on the winds. The way her eyes sparkled and danced when she grinned. The way that canary-yellow gown wrapped like second skin around her lithe, willowy frame.
There could never be anyone more lovely than my Belle.
For years, my infatuation with her stunning beauty and vivacious laughter had only grown. We’d been raised in the same little hamlet together. I’d watched her bloom from a fresh-faced girl to a woman more beautiful than all the stars in the heavens.
I tapped my fingers on the rough wooden edge of the bar top, my chilled apple ale long forgotten and warm by now. Belle sang at the top of her lungs as Ferdinand played the slightly grimace-inducing and off-key relic of a piano.
But I did not mind the occasional ear-splitting note when her angelic voice held me so enraptured. My gods, she was lovely. Her peach toned skin was all soft and glowy from just a bit too much drink. Her amber-colored eyes were a tad on the glassy side, and in between arias, she’d begun devolving into a fit of braying laughter.
The Jaded King Page 2
