“No!” I shouted, and he cringed again, either because I had just shattered his perverted dream or because he was still afraid that something would come after us.
“Would you stop that, Your Majesty?” he ground out through his perfect white teeth. He marched across the parking lot and took me by the arm. “Let's get out of here. We can talk in the car.” I tried to fight him, but he was strong, stronger than the reaver by a thousandfold, and I finally came to realize that if I didn't stop struggling, I was going to lose my arm and the gods only knew how long it would take me to get it back.
“But Charlotte,” I moaned and felt my insides falling apart. She was my friend, my rock. When my family treated me like shit, I had Char to run to; when all of my doomed-from-the-start relationships fell apart, Char was there to comfort me; when anything and everything went to hell in a hand basket, she was the only person that was ever really there. I needed to be there for her, too. I had to be because nobody else would. “Amadan,” I moaned, and I think it was the melancholy in my voice that got him. He stopped and glanced back at me, purple eyes black with shadows in the flickering street lights. Somebody needs to write the city about those damned things, I thought absently.
“What?” he barked out, his violet tongue flicking across his lips with the word.
“I have to save her,” I told him and tried to catch his eyes with mine. I wished fervently for my glamour again. It was just the slightest bit difficult to bat your eyelashes and flirt your way to what you wanted when half of your face was in a slow downwards slide towards your chin. “She means a lot to me, and she's in this shit because she's such a good friend. Please.” I leaned forward and took his other hand in mine. His face twisted briefly in disgust at the moist sensation of it against his palm. I released him. “I won't tell Samael, please.” I was babbling, nearly nonsensical. I wasn't thinking clearly. We stared at each other again, and I felt my heart bursting inside my chest.
“Take this,” was all he said and then reached into the back pocket of his shimmering blue pants. They were the only article of clothing he was wearing, including shoes. I'll never understand the fae. He held out his palm to me and in it was a vial of blood. A glamour. “Spare me the sight. Maybe I'll reconsider.” Without thinking, I snatched it greedily and swallowed it in one quick mouthful before realizing that the unreliable streetlamps had hid something from me.
Amadan was grinning.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
UNSEELIE
“The Unseelie court has perhaps the most frightening reputation of all three. However, it is unwarranted. They are the smallest court and the least active in liath trade. While still cruel, Scatach has been known to show far more empathy and kindness towards her subjects than her twin, Aife. But beware, do not step on the hem of her dress. If you do, you may find your head on the chopping block.”
Amadan was lucky I was so preoccupied with thoughts of Char, because when I looked down and found my skin glowing white with the slightest tinge of pink, I nearly killed him. I swung at him, hard, and because he hadn't expected it, I hit him right in his perfect, square jaw. Amadan stumbled backwards and scowled at me.
“Bitch,” he snarled and shook his head as if he could shake the pain away. “You should be happy I kept you from killing yourself.” He righted himself and smiled, but it wasn't a happy smile, not at all. It was maniacal, yes, but not joyful. He wasn't happy about this, but he was right. Still, I tried to fight. Saving Char was all that mattered, logicality be damned. “You know the fae can't cross a faerie ring without help.”
“Happy?” I asked him as my hands came up and found mounds of dark hair that I didn't recognize. “Do I fucking look happy?” The blurry, memory dancers were though. They poked and prodded at me, angry at being forgotten during combat, gleeful at seeing my fae form again. I ignored them. “Fuck.” I turned back towards the ring, taking off at a bouncing pace that made my massive fall of hair brush against my ass and the backs of my thighs. How was I supposed to fight with so much of it? It was a liability and already it was making my neck hurt.
I skidded into the mushrooms with a burst of scent, like almonds, sliding across the pavement and shedding pale skin across the gravel, smearing blood. Amadan hissed, reached down and grasped me by the arm, hauling me upright painfully.
“Listen to me,” he said and his voice was low and serious. “I am glad you have discovered a spine buried beneath all of that flesh, and I am overjoyed to find that you care about something other than yourself, but now is not the time. We need to go, now.”
“But Char … ” I began. I never finished the sentence. My eyes were locked behind Amadan, on the back door of the club. A rectangular square of light leaned crookedly out at us, framing a shadow of a man. He was slender and well groomed, eyes dark but friendly, skin pale, clean, dressed in slacks and a T-shirt. He was the kind of man you passed on the street everyday, never really looked at, never remembered.
Except for the smell.
I think that I would've thrown up if Amadan hadn't clamped a sweaty hand over my mouth. The air just tasted like rot and pain and piss. Suffering. There were a lot of people or fae or whatever in that building that were dying. I could feel the charge in the air like electricity, the last fading remnants of a person fleeing their skin for something better. Only they weren't getting anywhere. I knew that without knowing how. These people weren't succumbing to sweet darkness; they were being wrenched from it. Death wasn't a reprieve; it was only continued hell.
Something was eating them.
Not their bodies, their souls. I threw up into my own mouth, tasting acrid bile, and was forced to swallow it back down a burning throat. My eyes flew to Amadan's. We have to get her out of there, I wanted to scream.
His eyes flashed, the whites sparkling in that crazy dance that told me things were not good. They were bad, terrible, fucking horrendous.
I didn't need to ask who the shadow was. It was obvious.
It was Gadrael.
The club that wasn't really a club at all flickered briefly, revealing burn marks, charred blackened bricks, decay. This building had been torched. Was downtown. Was the center for the CRL.
I was frozen, trapped, stunned. Char was priority, yes, but now I didn't know if she was in the ring or the building. Neither seemed promising. And my prospects? Maybe worse. I let Amadan haul me to my feet and crush me against his chest. His heart was pounding a mile a minute, stammering a horrid staccato rhythm of fear and desperation. He had been worried but not about this. He hadn't expected this.
“Well, well, well,” he drawled, bored, uninterested, definitely not surprised. Amadan might not have been using magic, but in his voice was the world's most masterful glamour. He was terrified, but you'd never know it. “Up this side of the Veil for business or pleasure?”
Gadrael chuckled and it was just that, a laugh, plain, simple. There was none of that noxious horror that had been in his voice at the funeral home. His glamour made him seem tame, like a pussycat. But I knew better. The memory dancers certainly knew better.
Run, run, run away. We're not ready yet. Run, run, get away.
“Most certainly a little of both,” he said and in his words was a promise of pain. For me, for Amadan, for Samael, for the world. I was shaking, hands frozen at my side. My throat was clenching, closing in on me. I could feel water in my lungs, pressure in my chest. Air, air, I need air. I gasped; my knees gave out. Amadan held me upright, clutched me tightly against him while I struggled through memories and pain.
Help, help, run away. Get away.
In my weakness, I glanced at the dancers and was gone.
There are only two things I hate worse than Court: bad manners and defeatist attitudes. But today was different; today was the day we would punish that man, if you could call him that. Today was the day we would bring him in, wrangle his soul, consume it. It was a fate reserved for few, handed out less times in a decade then there are heroes and goodness knows, there are few.
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When I saw his face, those dark eyes, that winning smile, I felt the hairs on the back of my neck curl. He had the face of an innocent, the demeanor of one wrongly accused. It was all such a perfect act, a perfect lie.
The guards didn't hesitate in dragging him before our thrones, tossing him at Samael and my feet like so much garbage. He lay sprawled, refused to stand, refused to acknowledge the crime he had committed.
“You took my mother away from me,” I told him and in my voice was venom. I had spoken without thinking, given him a weakness to hold on to. He would exploit that, given the chance, I knew.
“Gadrael.” It was Amadan, eyes half-lidded. He looked bored, but I knew he was enraged. In the set of his mouth, the clench of his teeth, I saw hatred. It was well placed. “You stand before the House of Gray and Graves a traitor of the worst kind. If you have anything you'd like to say, I'd suggest you do it now. After this, there won't be enough left of you to speak again. You've forfeited your right to rebirth. All that awaits you now is oblivion. I only wish it were pain.”
Gadrael chuckled and stood, raised pale eyes to his son's face.
Samael was not happy. He didn't want to take this monster into him, but he would, for the safety of us all, for the sanctity of life. I squeezed his hand, trying to infuse him with love, with strength.
“I would ask,” Gadrael began, twisting his body so that he was sitting, hands still shackled in iron, blood still draining down the palace steps. “That you reconsider.” He was smiling; laughter clung to his lips like spittle. I scowled.
“How dare you – ” He cut me off.
“I am tired of the Queens and their whims that change like the seasons Above. I can't presume to know how things should be, but I do know that I don't like them as they are.” He forced himself to his feet, nearly slipped in the wet crimson that covered the floor like a rug. “I can't make those presumptions like you do,” he told us, mouth quivering, veins in his neck standing at attention like soldiers. “But I do know that you won't be making them anymore.”
I moved to grab him, to take him, to kill him. Samael moved. Amadan moved.
All of us, too late.
I woke up in a panicked heat, my head snapping forward, being dragged back. I screamed, fought, struggled with a heavy weight that bound my arms and legs.
I had gotten caught on my own hair, been trapped in blankets and tangled sheets.
I was back at Corey's, tucked into the bed that had once been ours and that, from the lack of his things around me, was now solely mine. I swept the hair out from beneath me and laid it across the nearest pillows, briefly stunned by the dark, glimmering beauty of it in the morning sunshine. And then I remembered Charlotte and my entire body went cold.
“Char,” I whispered, staring straight ahead, seeing but not seeing. Samael had told me not to hang around with people I didn't want to see hurt. I had ignored him. It had gotten me here. The memory dancers were absolutely vicious, using my sadness and despair as stepping stones to my thoughts. It took every ounce of strength I had left to get rid of them. The dream they had just given me was enough to rock my nightmares for weeks to come. I don't think I could've handled another.
Gadrael.
I shivered as I remembered the sight of him, dressed so casually, leaning against the doorframe. And Amadan. Where was Amadan? How the hell was I not dead, not consumed whole, swallowed spirit and soul?
I flung my feet out of bed and ran into Samael in the hallway.
My scream had drawn him there, and he clutched me tightly, pulled me against his chest, smothered my face in the nook of his neck.
“Where is he?” I asked, my voice muffled by the metal of his armor. It was strange, almost soft, I ran my fingers down his chest and tried to control the torrent of fear and confusion that was gripping my psyche like a fist. Samael didn't need a description. He knew who I was talking about.
“Amadan is gathering last minute supplies,” he whispered, using my arms to move me back so that he could look at me. His face was drawn and tired, the sparkle in his eyes dimmed. “He's coming with us. We'll leave within the hour.”
“What about my mom?” I asked, watching as the corners of his lips twisted down in a frown.
“The ghost … ” He didn't need to finish. I could guess.
“Elizabeth let her out?” I squealed, my heart cracking into a thousand pieces. I was going to protect her. I was going to save somebody, anybody. Now that had been taken away from me. Everyone I loved and cared about was gone. Still, if I were safe then maybe … I held back the question a little longer. “Where is she?” Samael shook his head. I cursed myself for not answering the phone at the grocery store. I would've known then, could've left with Char, might've saved them both … I took a deep breath, forced Samael to hold my azure gaze. He looked down at me, and even with the commotion, with the surprise, the sadness, I could see the love there. I ignored it. Now wasn't the time. “Gadrael?” Samael grimaced.
“He surprised me,” was all he said. I pressed for more.
“What happened last night?” I felt ashamed for passing out and had to look away. Samael put his fingers under my chin and turned me to face him.
“Amadan isn't a fae to be trifled with. The Fool hasn't lived for three centuries by being easily manipulated.”
“Or easily killed.” Amadan strutted down the hallway, naked, and paused next to us. “We can leave now. The damned Dotair is already in the car.”
“No.” It was firm, simple. If I was Queen, then they would listen. “I'm not going anywhere until we find Char, Gadrael be damned.” Glances were exchanged. They weren't happy.
“We've already found her,” Samael said and in his voice was a hitch that scared me, shook me to my core, and broke me into a million pieces. My blood ceased to flow; my heart stopped; inside of me something shifted, melted.
“Take me there.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
ANAMIE
“Anamie means Drifting Soul in the language of the fae. For those familiar with the Gaelic language, the word 'anam' for soul was pulled right from the vocabulary of the faeries. It is hard to say how much influence they have had on the language, culture, and customs of the word, but if there was ever a Savior, a being created just to protect the lost, the damned, the disheartened, it would be the Gray Queen. Never has there been a soul more in tune with the world and those that reside within it. Each successor has inherited their great-grandmother's wisdom and only expounded on her image of sanctity. Still, the first queen's words have brought peace to many: 'Welcome to the House of Gray and Graves where we never lie still and death is only the beginning … '”
I never expected to find what I did.
I couldn't believe nobody else had seen her yet. Maybe it was because Samael had hidden her with glamour for me to find. I don't know. But I think he decided to show me what he could've so easily described in a more pleasant manner, so that I would finally become responsible for my own actions, so that I would finally finish growing that backbone I'd been so proud of seeing lately. Still, it was a sight that would burn my soul and twist me just enough so that I would become unrecognizable to myself from that point on. It was the thing that would change me from human to fae. From a nobody to a queen.
“Charlotte!” I sobbed collapsing to my knees and reaching out a hand to brush a lock of hair away from her frozen face. Her eyes were wide with shock, mouth open in a silent scream. She couldn't possibly have had any idea as to what had been happening to her. She didn't know fae existed or that her best friend was a walking, talking corpse. “Charlotte,” I moaned, trying not to look at her battered body. Her skin had taken on a gray sheen in death, and coupled with the cuts and gouges all over her naked body, she was hardly recognizable.
“I am sorry for your loss,” Samael said quietly behind me. I pulled my gray sweatshirt over my head and laid it across her body, trying to cover as much of her breasts and the area between her legs as possible. I pushed on one of th
em, but they were mired in death, and I couldn't close them.
Raped and tortured.
Because of me.
Samael had tried to tell me and I hadn't listened. “I wish you didn't have to see this, sweetness. I wish I'd been able to save her,” he told me. I turned towards him once, wiping an arm across my dripping nose. I didn't care about anything, not the fat tears dripping down my cheeks or the white lace of my push up bra. Nothing.
I brushed another strand of Charlotte's hair with my fingers.
“Another one of your lovers?” Samael asked, for some reason unwilling to let me grieve in peace. I think he was just trying to find out more about who I'd become, what had happened to the girl he had loved, still loved, so much. I scowled at the pavement near his booted feet.
“Just because I'm bi doesn't mean I fuck everything that walks, Samael,” I snarled. The words were harsher than they needed to be, but I wanted an outlet for my pain. He was the only person nearby. Samael took a step away from me and remained silent for several moments while I let salty drips coat the back of the sweatshirt.
I had to do something. I had to. I couldn't stand by anymore and be a silent victim. And I sure as hell couldn't just stand around waiting for other people to do things for me. It was time to stand up for myself. To become a new person, to become Liadain. Georgette wasn't strong. Georgette let Charlotte be raped and killed.
“Samael,” I whispered and I was surprised at the quiet, menacing whisper of foreign magic that hung in the air with my words. I finally had conviction, strength, purpose. Too bad it had taken the life of my best friend for me to find it. “I want you to help me destroy Gadrael.” I stood and faced him, straightening my shoulders, heady determination burning in my gaze. A slow, steady grin spread across Samael's sharp lined face, wicked as sin. “I want you to help me destroy the fucker so that he can suffer in this life and the next.”
Gray and Graves: A Dark Fae Menage Urban Fantasy (The Three Courts of Faerie Book 1) Page 26
