by Jayme Morse
“So, since your coven is a part of the Nightshades, and I am now a part of your coven, does that mean that I’m a Nightshade, too?” I found myself questioning. It only made sense.
Slade shook his head. “You would think so. But no, it doesn’t work that way. Anyone who wishes to become a member of the Nightshades has to go through the initiation process. If you want to join, then you’ll have to do that.”
“Do I want to join the Nightshades?” I asked them.
“I suppose that all depends. The Nightshades are what you might call ‘bad’,” Slade told me. “You might not necessarily agree with everything they want us to do—and you will have to do what they want. You also might not agree with everything they stand for. But there are a number of benefits to joining their fraternity.”
“Such as?” I pressed.
“Joining the Nightshades is what will activate your ring powers. Without becoming a member of the fraternity, your ring will become null and void, inactive of all magic.”
“But my ring is already magical,” I insisted as I held my hand tightly to my chest. “It can do things.”
Things like link me to a coven full of hot guys and make two gargoyles turn back to stone.
“It’s still feeding off of Dylan’s powers,” Julius explained. “Eventually, it will stop working unless you join the Nightshades.”
“Can I even join the Nightshades when my ring says ‘Moonstrike’ right inside of it?” I found myself asking.
“Yeah. Vampires decide to switch fraternities all the time. If you decide to become a member of the Nightshades, then the inscription inside your ring will change all on its own. It will say Nightshade instead of Moonstrike,” Julius explained.
Well, that was relieving, at least. I was glad that I wasn’t limited to becoming a Moonstrike just because Dylan had been a Moonstrike.
“If you wanted to become a Moonstrike, you would have to leave our coven,” Slade informed me. “You would have to leave us.”
“We can’t have someone who’s an enemy as a part of our coven.”
“Is it even possible for me to leave your coven?” I questioned. I had figured that once the ring had chosen me to be a part of them, that was it. The decision was sealed or locked into place.
“Yes, but it wouldn’t be easy.” His eyes locked on mine, and I could have sworn that I saw a look of sadness pass through them.
I wondered if it made him just as sad to think about me unjoining their coven as it made me feel when I thought about leaving it. Leaving their coven was the last thing I wanted. I hadn’t even known them for a full 24 hours, but already I knew that I wanted them in my life. It was the strangest thing.
“There’s something else we should probably tell you before you decide if you want to join the fraternity or not. The Nightshades are the entire reason we met. They’re the reason Noah was even in his coffin at that graveyard. It’s the Nightshades fault that you’re now a vampire,” Slade said.
“How? Why?” I questioned.
“To ensure the survival of the Nightshades, one of us stays dead at all times. That’s why I was in a coffin when you found me,” Noah explained. “Every member of our coven will have to spend time in a coffin at some point.”
My gaze flickered up to his as the realization set in.
“For how long?” I asked him out loud.
“It depends. I was in there for a year,” Noah reminded me.
“Right now, all of the Nightshades are alive,” Tristan went on. “Pretty soon, there will be a selection. Pretty soon, we’ll be finding out who’s turn will be next.”
One day—and it seemed like it would be one day soon—we would be separated.
One day, there was a chance that I was going to have to go into a coffin.
Chapter 22
Riley
“That was awkward,” Drew said in a singsong voice as we walked behind Tristan and Julius in the direction of the faeries. “It looked like you and the guys were having a moment.”
He smiled knowingly at me.
“I hope you didn’t feel left out,” I said.
“I’ll find my own vampire man candy in time,” Drew replied. “No worries. I won’t always be the—” He counted us—“sixth wheel.”
Julius was at the front, leading the rest of us to the dark fae’s territory. He was using his phone's GPS in one hand and was navigating the map with his other.
As I walked behind him, I noticed how tall he was. He was at least a head taller than Tristan. His tight black shirt was tight against his back and arms, giving me a view of his muscles for the first time.
For a while, I had just thought of him as the nerdy one. The one that kept to himself that I would be able to have the best intellectual conversations with out of the group. But, as it turned out, he was just as smoking hot as the rest of the coven.
“Are you calling the rest of us dumb?” Tristan teased.
“Never,” I replied as Drew shot me a funny look.
I let out an embarrassed laugh but my mind just wouldn’t stop thinking about Julius, even though I wanted it to.
My eyes trailed up and down his back. How hadn’t I noticed how sexy his body was before now?
I just got the sense that he wasn’t just smart. He was strong and protective when he needed to be, too.
I noticed that the more I thought about him, the more confident his stride became.
Julius abruptly stopped walking and turned around to face us, a serious look in his eyes.
He glanced up from his map. “The dark fae lives right past these trees.”
“Oooh, we have arrived at our destination,” Drew said with a grin. “So what’s the plan?”
“Do we have to stay in the trees again?” I asked.
To be honest, I didn’t mind the idea of that. It had been kind of fun to hop from tree to tree with Noah while we had looked for the ogre.
“You just want to get back up on my back again,” Noah said in a flirty tone of voice.
I wasn’t even going to deny it.
Really, I just wanted to put my entire body all over him. All over all of them…
Slade’s eyes met mine with a look of amusement at the thought.
“All of us at the same time?”
I ignored him, blushing at the thought.
“It’s going to be a little harder to sneak into the faerie village than it was to get close up to the ogres. They’re a lot smarter than the ogres,” Noah explained.
That wasn’t surprising. The ogres had seemed pretty dumb.
“Have any of you ever met the dark fae?” Drew questioned. “Are they really that evil?”
“I wouldn’t want to be the one to provoke one,” Slade said, choosing his words carefully.
“And we’ve all explored the woods before and have bumped into one. They’re tiny little balls of anger,” Tristan said, wrinkling his nose.
“Do you blame them for attacking you?” Julius asked, shaking his head. “You stepped on one of their houses, while the faerie was inside of it.”
Tristan hung his head sheepishly. “It survived!”
“Good thing for us! The whole faerie village would have wanted to go to war with us,” Julius said.
“Our best option is probably to send Riley in,” Noah suggested.
“Wait, what? Me? By myself?” I squeaked, my stomach twisting into a nervous knot. “I wanted to go see what the faeries looked like, but I didn’t want to go by myself.”
“Not gonna lie, it kind of makes me more nervous that the faerie is afraid of the other faeries,” Drew said, shooting me an uncomfortable smile.
To say that I was afraid would have been an understatement. I was really freaking terrified.
“It’s fine,” Slade said, trying to reassure both of us. “It’ll be fine. You’ll blend right in with them.”
“They’ll be more willing to accept you onto their land than they will us, Riley,” Julius said.
“Yeah. You’re one of t
hem,” Tristan agreed with a shake of his head.
“I’m not. I’m not a dark fae,” I protested. “Don’t make me go alone.”
“Just fly right in and have a look around. Then fly back out,” Noah said gently. “We can’t sneak in ourselves, since the fae keep their houses all over the place.”
“There’s going to be fae houses on the ground, in the trees. There’s even some at the very tops of the tree branches,” Tristan said.
“So what you’re telling me is that if they really are evil, if they don’t like me snooping around, I’ll be surrounded by faeries.”
“Faeries will be everywhere,” Julius said. His nearly black eyes studied me. “Do you think you can do it?”
“Oh, yeah. I fly all the time and I love meeting new faeries. Two of my favorite pastimes,” I said sarcastically as I began to unbutton my black school-issued shirt. “It’ll be great. I’m an excellent flyer.”
The uniforms weren’t as bad as I thought they would be. I just wasn’t used to wearing shirts that had so many buttons. But it didn’t look bad on me. I thought that I even looked kind of cute in my black and gray plaid skirt and matching black thigh high socks.
“Mmhmm,” Noah agreed enthusiastically.
I glanced up to find that he was checking me out.
Most of them were.
The only ones who were averting their gazes to give me privacy were Julius and Drew.
Slade trailed his eyes down my body one last time before turning away from me.
“Something tells me you’re not actually the best at flying,” Julius with a chuckle.
“Oh, you sensed that, too?” Slade asked him.
“Just a hunch,” Julius replied.
“I have a feeling,” Drew agreed.
“Drew! You’re teaming up on me. You’re supposed to be on my side,” I said with an eye roll.
Truthfully, I wouldn’t have trusted me with this mission.
1. I wasn’t a good spy. Spies had to be discreet and inconspicuous, whereas I was anything but.
2. I was a total newbie at flying. There was a good chance I was going to end up crashing into the faeries’ houses or, even worse, the faeries themselves. That seemed like a really good way to piss them off.
3. I was the worst at mingling with new people. My nerves always got the best of me, and that was with human people. If I was going to end up having to talk to a bunch of dark faeries, it was going to be completely nerve-wracking.
4. Tristan had made me really, really nervous to accidentally step on a faerie’s house.
But none of that mattered, I supposed, in the grand scheme of things.
All that mattered was that I needed to try my best to find Jordan.
*
I wove through the trees, leaving a trail of shimmering purple faerie dust behind me. I didn’t know how to turn it off, or if it was even possible to fly without leaving a trail of dust in my tracks. Like I’d said, I really hadn’t done this whole flying thing a lot. When it came to flying, I was probably the most inexperienced faerie in the world.
It wouldn’t have been so bad if it weren’t for the fact that I was flying past faerie homes, which resembled little birdhouses. Except, they were large to me at the moment, since I was bird-sized, myself.
“It’ll be fine,” they’d said. “You’ll blend in,” they’d said.
“Releasing a trail of faerie dust from my ass does not mean the same thing as blending in,” I thought to them bitterly.
I felt like I was Hansel and Gretel leaving a trail of breadcrumbs for the bad faeries to come find me.
“Please! Please just let me go!” I heard Jordan scream.
Relief flooded my body. Jordan was still alive! I halted in my tracks, unsure of which direction the scream had come from. I wasn’t sure where to go. I flew to the tippy tops of the trees and then spun around, taking in my surroundings.
I hoped she would yell out something else so I could figure out where she was.
She had sounded so afraid—more afraid than I’d ever heard her sound in my entire life.
I was afraid to call out for her. I didn’t know what kind of trouble she was in. I didn’t know what kind of situation I would be flying into.
“Please just take me to Nightshade Vampire Penitentiary!”
Another voice followed. This time it was male.
“No,” he replied, his voice booming.
Whatever Jordan had gotten herself into, she was willing to go to jail to get out of it.
There. I spotted her laying on the ground beneath a huge twisted tree.
Dozens of twinkling lights surrounded her. I knew they weren’t just any old lights.
They were the dark fae.
“Found her,” I told the guys, because I really didn’t know what my next move should have been. I needed their help.
I stared down at Jordan, watching helplessly as she struggled against the green vines that had been wrapped around her arms and legs.
It was useless.
The vines were strong, apparently.
The guy who was guarding her, a guy who looked to be around our age with sandy brown hair and tan skin, started to yell at her.
“Stop fighting it!” he shouted. “It’ll only make it worse for you.”
When she didn’t stop, he waved his hand, wiggling his fingers in Jordan’s direction. Sparkly green magic shot out from his fingertips and swirled around her body.
The vines tightened themselves around her.
More vines began to move towards her. I watched them creep their way across the dark forest floor, all on their own.
One slithered up her thigh before poking itself beneath her back. It looped itself around her stomach a few times while the other end of it wrapped itself around a tree.
The more she fought against them, the more that the guy guarding her used his magic to tighten them.
I didn’t care anymore that I hadn’t heard back from any of the guys. I couldn’t hold back any longer. I had to step in. I had to do something instead of just watch it happen.
“Is that really necessary?!” I hissed at him.
“Riley!” Jordan said, looking so relieved. “Riley, I don’t want to run away anymore. These woods are awful. I’ll go back to Nightshade Vampire Academy and bribe my way in, somehow, or I’ll go to the prison. I don’t care. I just want to get out of here.”
“Wait. Did you just say Nightshade Vampire Academy?” the guy who was guarding her asked.
She nodded slowly.
“I might have a way to get you in… if you’ll do us a favor,” he replied, gesturing to all of the dark faeries who were hovering around them. Now that I was closer to them, I could see their wings. I had been right. They all had either black wings that had a colored sheen to them, or dark navy blue, purple, or green wings. “I have a pretty good potion that can mask the scent of werewolves. All you have to do is agree to it.”
“Yes! I will do it. I’ll do anything,” she agreed, nodding her head frantically.
“Jordan! We don’t know this guy. Who knows what kind of potion he may be giving you, let alone what favor he wants?” I asked her.
He shot an angry glance at my wings. “You good faeries all think you’re better than the dark fae. You’re supposed to trust us over a werewolf vampire hybrid.”
For some reason, it annoyed me that the dark fae thought I was a good faerie.
“I’m not just a faerie,” I told him as I narrowed my eyes at him. “I’m part vampire, too.”
“Vampire, you say?” he asked, raising his eyebrows with intrigue. “Now, that is even more useful. You also go to the vampire academy?” he questioned.
“Yes,” I told him honestly, because there was no point in trying to hide it.
“I see. We’ll let your friend go. At a cost to both of you,” he said with a firm nod of his head.
“I don’t have any money here,” Jordan said.
I didn’t either, but I wasn’t about to tell
that to the guy who had my friend wrapped up in vines.
“I don’t need your money. I have everything I could ever want,” he said, gesturing around to the faerie village.
Honestly, it didn’t look that impressive to me. But whatever floated his boat.
“We all have everything except for one thing,” he said, his eyes glancing between each of us.
“Which is what?” I asked.
“Vampires are evil. There is a group living on the Nightshade Vampire Academy campus. They come out here and tear one of us away from our families and kill us. They strip our magic away from us, just so that they can shove it into a ring that they wear around, pretending they have faerie powers,” he explained, his voice bitter.
All of the blood felt like it had drained from my face. I was so grateful that I was in faerie form and that I’d left my ring with the guys.
“They steal our souls along with it. The dead dark fae’s souls will never be at peace until we can crack open every single ring that’s ever been created for the vampires to use,” he spat.
“What do you want me to do?” I asked, glancing over at Jordan, who was staring me down, judging me probably, for wearing around a dead faerie’s soul.
But it’s not like I’d known that the first day I’d slipped it onto my finger. And besides, her own brother was the one who had given me the ring. How could she judge me when that was worse, in my opinion?
“I want you to bring me as many rings as you can find,” he said, looking optimistically hopeful.
“If you let Jordan go, and give her the potion to mask the werewolf half of her, it’s a deal,” I told him, knowing that I had no intentions of ever bringing him a ring.
“It’s a deal,” he replied, beaming.
Apparently, the dark fae weren’t a whole lot smarter than the ogres.
He stood and came over to shake my hand. His hand felt so massive next to my tiny Tinkerbelle-sized one.
I didn’t even feel bad about my decision. Sure, I was giving him false hope and even downright lying to him. But I was doing it for Jordan.
Maybe I wasn’t a good faerie, after all.