by Sadie Moss
“Let me see you do it first,” I said, trying not to sound as wary as I felt.
I trusted Jerrett completely. And I mostly trusted my abilities. But we were at least eight stories up, and I was firmly in agreement with Sol about not wanting to find out if the fall would kill me.
Jerrett gave me a wicked smile before hopping up into the window frame. He crouched there for a second, peering down at the side of the building like he was mapping his route. Then he dove forward. Despite his assurances, my heart leapt into my throat at the sight, and I rushed forward to peer out the window. Jerrett’s body appeared for a second, falling fast in a graceful dive, before he vanished into a shadow. He repeated the process several times, until he finally popped out of the shadow of a window on the first floor and landed lightly on his feet.
My stomach swayed. Maybe I shouldn’t have watched him do that first. Somehow, knowing exactly what was coming made me more terrified, not less. But I shook off my fear, crawling up to sit on the window ledge with my feet dangling outside the building. Then I took a deep breath and jumped.
It was nowhere near as graceful and elegant as Jerrett’s journey down. At one point, I missed the shadow I was aiming for and let out an undignified yelp, bouncing off the side of the building before I reoriented myself and dove into a new shadow. But I was in one piece when I landed with a dull thud next to Jerrett, and that was all I cared about.
We watched Sol and Malcolm follow us down. Now that I was observing from the safety of solid ground, it was actually incredible to witness. I’d have to remember this trick, since I seemed to have a propensity for getting into fights in tall towers.
With Sol in the lead, we started back toward where we’d left the car. We should just make it before sunrise.
Before we began shadow running, I looked back up at the large castle, and at the tower that’d once held the Stone of Power. A shiver passed through me. This place seemed so innocuous. Nothing more than an abandoned ruin. That was probably what had helped the stone remain undiscovered for so long. Who would hide something so valuable here?
“So, what’s the plan now?” I asked, tearing my eyes away from the large stone structure. “What do we do next?”
Jerrett slipped an arm over my shoulders. “Now would probably a pretty good time to switch to plan B.”
“What’s plan B?” I glanced up at him.
“We need to prepare for the possibility that the witches will perform their spell before we stop them. And if they do, we’ll need to fight fire with fire.”
“Fire with fire? What does that mean?”
Sol turned back to face us, his expression serious. “We need to find the remaining living fae and convince them to help us battle their undead brethren.”
18
Jerrett
“This whole ass-fucking hunt has gone sideways fast.”
I scrubbed a hand down my face, wishing there was something nearby I could punch. But since we were back on our private jet, there weren’t a lot of good options. My brothers would be pretty fucking pissed if I punched a hole through our plane—especially while we were in flight.
We were on our way back to New York, hoping we could pick up the sisters’ trail there. Hoping they’d make a foolish move and show themselves. Hoping our magical contacts in the city could help us track down the remaining fae.
Too much fucking hoping for my taste.
“I won’t argue with that.” Mal sank into the seat next to me. Willow peered glumly out the window from a chair opposite me, Sol beside her. “We need more manpower. We need to be doing two things at once—searching for the sisters and searching for the fae. But I don’t want to split up.”
“Do you think Carrick would lend us resources?” Will looked up, her eyes tired. “Now that the threat is no longer theoretical? If a massive army of fae shades is unleashed, there’s no way he’ll be able to keep the Penumbra from falling. Can you convince him to help us wipe out the threat before it becomes too big to fight?”
Mal grunted, and even though he tried to look like he was considering the idea, I was sure I knew his answer. Fuck no.
That selfish jackass wouldn’t lift a finger to help us, and if the shade attack did come, Carrick would sacrifice as many of his people as necessary to save his own skin.
“I’ll try, wildcat,” Mal said grimly.
And he would. Not because he had hopes of salvaging his relationship with his fuckstick of a father—it’d been bad for years, and Carrick had pretty much torched it when he threatened Will—but because she had asked him to. For her, he would leave no stone unturned. For her, he’d swallow his anger and speak to the king.
If I hadn’t known before that Mal was head over heels for the girl, I did now.
Willow smiled softly, though her eyes were still dark with worry. She rose, brushing her hand over Mal’s shoulder. “I’m going to get a little rest. Wake me if you need me.”
She headed down the aisle, disappearing into the room at the back.
“I’ll try reaching out to Eustice again. See if he can do some kind of finding magic to help us locate the remaining fae,” I said.
“And I’ll… talk to my father.” Malcolm couldn’t even get the words out without baring his teeth in a snarl.
Sol stood up. “I’m going to see if Willow’s all right. She seems off.”
He strode down the aisle. I twisted in my seat, scowling over my shoulder at him.
“Hey! No fucking fair. If I knew that was one of the options, I never would’ve picked ‘call Eustice’ as my job.”
He just chuckled, giving me a smug half-shrug before disappearing through the door behind Willow.
“Goddamn it. Un-fucking-fair.” I slumped back in my seat. I was tempted to join them, but I really did need to take care of this shit first.
Malcolm got up and rummaged through a pack we’d left on the plane. He pulled out two communication charms. The three of us generally used cell phones to keep in touch with each other, but the two people we needed to reach were both a bit technology-averse. He tossed one to me, then took the other over to the couch, swearing under his breath. Probably getting it out of his system before talking to his dear old dad.
I held mine in the palm of my hand, concentrating on who I wanted to contact. The black disc heated slightly, and then a semi-transparent image of Eustice’s face popped into view above it. He yelped when he saw me.
“Jerrett! Thisss is an invasssion of privacy!”
The great thing about these communication charms was that they allowed us to reach basically anyone we knew—and unlike a cell phone, there was no button they could press to decline the call. They didn’t even have to accept it. My head had just appeared in front of Eustice, and it’d stay there until I chose to leave or the charm wore off. These charms weren’t easy to come by, and they were single-use only, so we didn’t bust them out often. But today was a good day to dig into our stash.
I grinned. “Hey, Eustice. You know, you’re always harping on about privacy, but really, I think you secretly love our visits.”
“I’m with a cusssstomer.” His sibilant voice got extra sharp when he was mad. Like now.
“Sorry, pal. Tell them to come back later. I need to talk to you. We’ll pay, you know we will.”
Eustice’s reptilian eyes narrowed, and I could hear the snakes around his body hissing. “Double my consultation fee.”
I rolled my eyes, anxious to get this moving along. “Triple it.”
The Finder shook his head, opening his mouth to argue. Then he closed it. “That’ssss not how haggling works.”
“It is today. I’ve got no time for this shit.”
He blinked, then nodded. He made his excuses to whatever client he was with before turning back to me, running a hand through his white-blond hair. “What do you need? Did you not find what you were looking for?”
“No. You were spot-on with the location of the stones; we were just too late.” I tugged my lip ring betwee
n my teeth. “We need to find the location of the last remaining fae clan.”
“The lasssst fae?” His thin brows rose with interest, his yellow eyes gleaming.
“Yeah. I mean, there are probably a few loose ones floating around, hiding out among humans or something. But there’ve always been rumors that the fae who survived the vampire massacres banded together and went into hiding somewhere. We need to know where.”
“Why?” Eustice cocked a brow. “Feeling hungry?”
“That’s not fucking funny!” I growled, an unexpected flare of protectiveness rising inside me.
I’d been alive during the fifty-year period when the vampires all but wiped out the fae. I hadn’t participated in the killings, and truthfully, I hadn’t taken much notice of it at the time. But Eustice’s question struck a nerve. Those were Willow’s people he was talking about.
“Sssorry. Sorry.” He held his hands up, looking a little frightened, even though hundreds of miles separated us.
I ran a hand through my hair. “It’s fine. Look, can you help us or not?”
Eustice fidgeted uncomfortably. “Not. I can’t find people, you know that.”
A sound of annoyance rumbled in my chest. He’d mentioned that before, but with Eustice, I never knew if he was lying about his abilities just to get out of doing the work.
Apparently, not this time.
“What if you had a touchstone? We…” I cleared my throat, deciding there was no harm in telling him the truth. “We have a half-fae with us. Can you use her to track them down somehow?”
Eustice shook his head, his shaggy hair floating around him in wispy tendrils. “Nope. Can’t do it.” He pressed his thin lips together. “But if you have a fae, what do you need me for?”
I rolled my eyes. “Because we’re looking for more fae, dummy. Not just the one we have.”
The pupils in his snake-like eyes gleamed black. “No, I mean ussse her to find the others. All fae are connected. Didn’t she tell you that?”
Sitting up straighter in my chair, I leaned forward. “Uh, no. But she doesn’t exactly know much about the fae. What do you mean they’re all connected?”
Eustice waved a hand, looking bored with this conversation already. “I don’t know, sssomething about how they all share one giant sssoul. They each have their own soul, but they’re also connected to a ‘master ssssoul’ and have a piece of it insssside them.”
“How the fuck do you know this?” I asked, curiosity filling me. The fae had been gone long enough that for a lot of supernaturals, especially those with shorter lifespans, they were little more than legend at this point.
“I read about fae magic for a Finding job.” He preened. “I’m thorough. That’s why I’m the best.”
“Yeah, you are. Thanks, Eustice.”
I tapped the communication spell again, and his translucent face vanished. Dropping the disc onto the seat beside mine, I leaned back into the plush leather. If Eustice was right, Willow would be our best chance at finding what we needed. But she’d never mentioned feeling a connection to any shared soul before. Did she have enough fae blood to access it?
Before I could stand, Mal stormed down the aisle toward me. He collapsed into the chair across from me, every muscle in his body bulging with barely contained anger. With a growl, he curled his hand around the black disc of his communication charm, crushing it in his hand.
I grimaced. “I take it your talk went about as expected?”
“That selfish, cowardly son of a bitch! He’s refused to give us any support. And he’s closed up the walls of the Penumbra. There’ve been more attacks on supernaturals—the witches are feeding their shade army. And he’s leaving his people to fend for themselves.”
“So much for the Penumbra being a haven.”
Mal clenched his jaw. “He used up all his courage winning the throne, and now he huddles on it like a troll guarding his treasure. The man isn’t fit to rule anything.”
I leaned forward, clapping a hand on his shoulder.
“No. He’s not.” Then I raised my eyebrows, jerking my chin toward the wall. “Want to punch a hole in the plane?”
Despite his anger, he huffed a laugh. “No, but thanks for the suggestion. How did your call go?”
Eustice’s words echoed in my mind, and I thought of the sweet half-fae woman who had become our guiding light in more ways than one.
“Interestingly. Turns out, we need Willow more than we ever knew.”
19
Sol
“Willow tree?”
I stepped inside the bedroom and closed the door gently behind me. The sounds from the front section of the jet dimmed, and I reached out with my senses for Willow.
She was curled up on her side on the bed, but she wasn’t asleep. Her aura churned with agitation.
“Yeah? Do you need me? I was just resting.” Her voice was soft but strained.
I crawled up onto the bed beside her, wrapping my body around hers and pulling her close to me, marveling at how perfectly she fit into my embrace. “No, you weren’t. I can tell something’s bothering you. What’s wrong?”
She chuckled weakly. “Besides the threat to life as we know it, you mean?”
I brushed a strand of her hair back. It was soft as silk beneath my fingertips, and the sweet cherry-almond scent of her, underscored by the earthy notes of her fae blood, filled my nostrils. My fangs dropped, tempting me to bury my face in the crook of her neck and pierce her delicate skin. But I swallowed back my bloodlust.
“We’re all worried about that. But there’s something else too. What is it?”
A heavy breath left her lips. “I just feel… torn. I know we have to stop Neoma and Samira. And when I think about what they did, what they’re probably still doing—sacrificing innocent lives to keep their shade army strong—I hate them. What they’re doing is evil.”
“It is.”
“But when I drop into those visions, I feel for them. At first, I thought maybe the man who captured them and turned them was the one behind all this. That they were just his puppets. But it doesn’t seem likely.”
I made a low noise in my throat. “No. It doesn’t.”
“So why is my Sight showing me these things? Why is it making me feel sorry for these women?” She sighed, interlacing her fingers with mine and pulling my arm tighter around her. “I never thought I’d say this, but I want to be a vampire. I do. I’m happy with who I am, and I’m so happy I found you and your brothers. But I don’t agree with the vampire laws. I think they’re wrong.”
Her voice was soft and sweet, but full of the strength and conviction I’d come to expect from her. I tugged her shoulder gently, urging her to roll over onto her back and propping myself up on one elbow to lean over her. I wished I could see her eyes. Jerrett had described them to me once, and I imagined the rich hazel as a beautiful blend of greens and browns, like a forest in the summertime.
“I think you’re right, Willow tree. Certain laws and traditions have been in place for so long that no one questions them anymore. Vampires were once the leaders of all supernaturals. It hasn’t been that way in North America for quite some time, since Carrick has no interest in leading. That’s why Malcolm, Jerrett, and I split off from the court. We wanted to do good in the world, and we thought we’d found the best way.” My brow furrowed. “But maybe there’s another way to do good. Maybe there’s a better way forward.”
Willow’s delicate hands came up to frame my face, and I felt her gaze on me.
“I want that,” she whispered. “Vampires created the threat we’re up against now through their negligence and cruelty. What they did to Neoma and Samira was unforgivable. And I want to believe I’m fighting on the right side, but I have to know this won’t happen again.”
“Not if there’s anything I can do to stop it.”
She drew in another deep breath, and her body seemed to relax, the tension draining from her. I hoped she believed my words, because I meant every one of them
. When Jerrett had approached me on my deathbed with the offer to turn me, he had told me not just what vampires were, but what they could be. We had the power to keep evil at bay.
Maybe it was time we started looking more closely into our own ranks for the threat.
Unable to resist, I dropped my mouth to Willow’s, finding the soft bow of her lips easily. She yielded to my touch, her body melting under mine. Her arms wrapped around my neck, and she traced the muscles of my back.
“Sol?” she breathed into my mouth. “I can’t turn off my brain. Make me stop thinking for a while.”
My lips curved into a smile against hers at the desperation I could already hear in her voice.
“I can do that, Willow. Do you trust me?”
“Yes,” she whispered, arching into me.
“Good girl. Then do exactly as I say. I’ve got you.”
She let out a slight whimper, and I felt her shiver beneath me.
I broke away from our kiss, working my way down her body. I removed articles of clothing as I went, pulling off her shirt and bra before slipping her pants and panties down. She lifted her hips to help me, and when I had her fully naked, I kneeled between her open legs. She didn’t try to close them, didn’t try to hide from my attention, but her breaths came faster. Her heart was pounding in a hard rhythm, and I could already smell the arousal soaking her sex.
My cock strained to free itself, hardening at the thought of her so slick and ready for me. I stood, quickly disposing of my clothes. Then I crawled up the bed again, lying down beside Willow. She rolled over to kiss me, draping her soft, warm body over mine, and for a moment, I lost myself in the sweetness of that kiss.
But I had promised to make her brain stop working, and I intended to keep my word.
I slapped one of her ass cheeks lightly, pulling a startled moan from her lips. “Up, Willow tree. Ride my face.”
She didn’t hesitate. She crawled eagerly up my body, settling her knees on either side of my head and bracing her hands on the wall. Her scent burst into my nostrils, overwhelming me, stealing my self-control. She smelled so fucking good, and that was nothing compared to how she tasted. I wrapped my hands around her thighs, spreading her legs wider and holding her in place as I thrust my tongue inside her.