Fee gasped.
Eiden wrapped his arm around her, pulling her tight against him. “The first time I saw you I knew you were trash, but have you no honor?”
Like he knew anything of the subject when he couldn’t seem to keep Mr. Happy in his pants. “Not a drop. Honor is for losers who live to tell the tale of having their asses kicked. And this dagger in my hand says that I prefer Team W, now do what I said.”
“You’re pathetic.” Eiden’s tone lashed at her, his words dripping with disgust.
“And you’re about to have all the blood drained from your body, so shut up.”
All around Jensen, the Unseelie laughed, taunting the light-elves and egging her on to do what she had already threatened. Tiring of her game and eager for blood to be spilled, the dark fae crowded forward and she knew that if she didn’t hurry up and get to the point, they would soon turn their attention toward her.
Fee’s eyebrows bunched together. “Let’s just do what she says.” She reached out, grasping Liam’s hand, then did the same with Eiden’s.
Good job Fee. Focusing on Liam once more, Jensen lifted the dagger. “Now give me your hand.”
Liam laughed, but unlike the Unseelie, there was no humor in the sound. “You couldn’t pay me to touch you girl.”
“Do it Liam,” Fee said, her words rushed.
“Yeah Liam, do it or I’ll make you wish you’d fallen into a black hole for real. And you and I both know I don’t lie.” Come on Liam. Read between the lines.
Ridges formed between Liam’s golden brows as he stared at Jensen with his head tilted to the side. And in the depths of his gaze was a never-ending question, though his lips allowed just one word to pass. “Never?”
Unblinking, she shook her head. “Never.”
With that, Liam released the breath he’d been holding in a rush. “Then I should probably do what you say.” He lifted his hand, palm side up.
Biting back a sigh of relief, Jensen laid her hand on top of his, curling her fingers over the side of his palm.
“What the hell kind of trick is this?” the siren yelled.
Jensen smiled as she stepped beside Liam and faced the Unseelie. “The kind that proves just how good a faerie can lie.”
A blast tore through the Isle of Mermen, tossing its inhabitants to the ground and leaving confusion and madness in its wake. Guttural screams of agony soon filled the air along with the foul stench of charred flesh, burning wood, and sulfur. Ash drifted to the ground, dressing the Isle in a bootlegged version of a winter wonderland. And through it all, Jensen and the light-elves remained rooted to the ground, the small circle of soil where they stood somehow untouched by the blaze.
Chaos became king. A tiny fiery faerie frantically pecked through a pile of dust formerly known as the will o’ wisps. A banshee wailed at the top of her lungs as blood red tears streamed down her soot covered cheeks. A dark-elf clawed at the ground, its headless body still determined to get to the light-elves. And in the midst of all the death, the ash, and the debris stood Jensen’s Algebra teacher, Mr. Tanner.
His hair, disheveled. His clothing, torn. Blood seeped from a cut at his hairline and ash whitened the strands above it, but other than that, he looked fine, strong even. “Keep holding hands,” Tanner said, his voice, strangled and distant though he stood just a few feet away.
Jensen coughed. Smoke thickened the air around her and she hated the idea that she likely tasted someone else’s death each time she took a breath. “Who are you?” She recognized something familiar in him, a strange sense of rightness she just couldn’t place or stop herself from trusting, no matter how stupid she felt for doing so.
Like those cursed by Medusa, Tanner remained still, his expression tortured as if a war was being fought inside his chest and each choice ripped at his soul. For a second, he met Jensen’s gaze and she thought the pendulum had swung in her favor. Then the panel of etched glass behind her shattered and the ocean came rushing in.
Chapter Eleven
Jensen sat hunched over her desk, staring down at the black screen of her disassembled cell phone as salt water dripped from her hair onto the wood floor.
Ten minutes before, she and her friends had been swallowed up by that very water, then flipped and tossed around like nothing more than rag dolls.
Jensen thought they would die. Not her. Them. Because apparently, nixies can breathe underwater. Just something a girl learns when her heart is beating way too fast to think with a clear head, and she’d rather take a deep breath of ocean water than watch the guy she likes die right in front of her.
But they had managed to survive, somehow finding themselves back in the mortal realm at the end of the pier. Now they could all live happily ever after. Except her.
The idea of a fairy tale ending seemed almost inconceivable to Jensen, since hers revolved around finding a sister who didn’t want to be found. Her heart clenched every time she thought about it. And to make matters worse, she no longer had a way for that sister to get in touch with her, even if she wanted to. Her cell phone had been resting against a pack of spearmint in Fee’s clutch when the ocean decided to crash through the Isle.
Hope making Jensen stupid, she’d turned it on and watched in horror as it flashed the white screen of death.
She rubbed her sore eyes and sighed. Maybe her phone would work again once it had enough time to dry out. Anger surging, she balled up her fist and slammed it down on the desktop, causing the back cover of the phone to rattle. But that only made her feel like shit. Here she was upset over a stupid cell phone, when one person didn’t make it back from the Isle of Merman. Tanner.
“Knock, knock,” Liam said, using his shoulder to push the door open. His hands were full, each holding a coffee mug. “Bad time?”
Jensen relaxed her fist and stood up, shaking her head no. She didn’t want to talk about it. At least, not right now.
Liam arched an eyebrow, but said nothing more, opting to simply hand her one of the coffee mugs.
The yummy scent of hot cocoa and melted marshmallows drifted to her nose and she smiled. “Thank you.” She sat down at the end of her bed and took a sip.
Liam nodded, sitting down beside her. “You changed back.”
She glanced up from the mug. “Sorry, what?”
He placed his mug on the floor, then reached out, running his finger across the green gemstone in her ring. “You put it back on.”
“Oh.” She shook her head. “Yeah, I figured we’ve all had enough of the nixie for one day.”
“About earlier—”
“There’s no need to explain.”
Liam smiled, just a sad twitch of his lips, but it instantly turned her heart to mush. “Yeah there is. I should’ve trusted you from the beginning.”
“All that matters is that you trusted me when it counted.” Once the words came out, she realized just how much she meant them.
Liam closed his eyes and rested his head in his hands. He was serious—too serious for her liking. For some reason, not trusting her back in the Isle of Mermen bothered him, even though their safety hinged on his believing she was Unseelie.
She laid her hand on top of his, willing him to let it go. “It’s fine Liam. Seriously, I get it. I’m a good liar. What can I say? It’s a gift.”
“You’re so much more than that to me.” Liam flipped her hand over and traced the lines of her palm before lifting it to his mouth and planting a kiss in the center. “I couldn’t stand the thought of you being like them. If you were Unseelie, what did that say about me for wanting you?” He glanced up, pinning her with his gaze, and in its depths was a quiet desperation she had never seen there before. “Because I do want you Jensen.”
All she could do was stare back at him. He wanted her. It was one thing to think he liked her, but to know it for a fact was mind-blowing. Had her mouth not been full at the time, her jaw would’ve been touching the floor. Realizing she probably looked like a blowfish, she swallowed the cocoa,
sending it down the wrong pipe. An uncontrollable coughing spell followed, causing her to jerk the mug around.
Liam flinched away, grabbing the mug and setting it down before she could do more damage. “You ok?” he asked, staring at her as if he expected her to drift away in the wind like the seeds of a dandelion.
Besides being very close to death by lethal embarrassment? Yeah, she was just fine. “Mmm-hmm.” She patted her chest and cleared her throat. “It went down wrong. Sorry about that.”
Liam brushed her hair over her shoulder and started rubbing small circles at the center of her back. He was so close. And his touch felt just right, dizzying even through the sleepshirt separating the pads of his fingers from her much too sensitive skin.
She laid her head against his neck and could smell the freshness of his soap. The heat of his body warmed her, and she found herself wondering, though not for the first time, what it would be like to kiss him.
All of a sudden, Liam tensed. “Did you hear that?”
She sat up, straining to hear. “What? What did it sound like?”
“I don’t know.” He shook his head, the space between his eyebrows pinched. “Nothing. It’s nothing.”
Jensen stood up. Had they been followed? No one else had been on the pier with them. But someone could’ve been hiding in the water, watching and waiting for the chance to attack. “Maybe we should—”
She never got to finish. Liam grabbed her arm, pulling her to him. And then his lips were on hers.
Though her mouth opened automatically, Jensen was in shock—just not nearly enough to stop her from kissing Liam back. She closed her eyes and wrapped her arms around his neck, burying her fingers in his spiky hair.
And almost as soon as it began, their tender kiss came to an abrupt end, shifting into something fevered and desperate. Liam knotted his hand in her hair, bending her backwards, while his lips trailed kisses to the little dip in her collarbone. When his stubble scraped the side of her neck, she couldn’t stop herself from moaning out loud. Her knees felt weak and her breaths became ragged. Her heart hammered at her ribcage, and she could feel his heart pounding too.
Liam’s hand slid underneath her sleep-shirt and she shivered, only mildly aware that she wore nothing beneath the oversized tee, but a pair of cotton boyshorts.
Liam kissed her breathless, with the kind of passionate urgency she’d only ever seen in the movies. This was it. That perfect movie kiss. And she knew once it was over, her lips would be swollen, her tongue, tied as if with string, and the rest of her, screaming like a banshee for more. She thought nothing could ruin the moment, until …
A pajama wearing Eiden burst into the room, his white-blonde curls disheveled and his eyes puffy. “Uh, you two might wanna get out here.”
Jensen expected him to follow up with some kind of snide remark, but he kept his mouth shut. Odd.
“What’s wrong now?” Liam asked, though his stormy eyes were still locked on Jensen.
“Your father is back, with the Sidhe Guard.”
Liam looked up then, his eyes darkening. “How many?”
Eiden winced. “All of them.”
Chapter Twelve
Jensen stood at the top of the stairs as the entire Sidhe Guard glared at her from below. They wore taupe racer-front tank tunics that looked like they’d been put on backwards, the matching pants with drawstrings at the puffed out bottom, wing imprinted wrist bracers, and boots that resembled folded dried leaves.
Some had quivers strapped to their hips with white and gold feathers fletched to the arrows they held. Others had holsters on their legs for additional blades. And Jensen guessed that most, if not all of the warriors, could kill their prey without a weapon at all.
Battle-ready didn’t come close to describing them. These weren’t faeries returning home to care for their children, but faeries returning home to slay the monster that ate their children. And by the hostile looks on their faces, she was guessing they believed she was that monster. She, who had never eaten a single child in her whole entire life.
“So the rumors are true.” A woman broke the silence, the only member of the guard without wings. She stepped in front of the others like she was used to being in command. A thick fringe bang stopped just above her icy blue eyes, the weight of which had Jensen fidgeting uncontrollably.
“I’m not sure what rumors you speak of?” Liam said, coolly.
The woman smiled then, a smile that didn’t come close to meeting her cold, flat eyes. “Oh, such modesty. Let me be the first to commend you on such an extraordinary feat. No one has ever been able to do what you three have done.”
Liam offered the woman an equally fake smile. “Nimue, you’re far too kind. But I’m afraid such praise may be a bit premature. We’ve done nothing yet to deserve it.”
Nimue, as in, mistress of the lake Nimue? Jensen swallowed twice, suddenly feeling bile rising in her throat.
Nimue’s smile drooped and her eyes darted to Eiden. “Is this not the girl you spoke of? The Nixie?”
“She is,” Eiden hesitated, “but she isn’t.” He rubbed the back of his neck, appearing more confused by the second.
“She’s not Unseelie,” Fee said firmly.
“Was she not raised by Lorelei, believing them to be kin?” Nimue asked.
“Yes, but she knows better now,” Fee said.
Nimue stepped forward and all the warmth in the room disappeared. “Did she not trick you into going to the Isle of Mermen, placing your life in mortal danger?”
Fee shook her head. “Look, this is all just a big misunderstanding and if you would just listen to us, you would see that.”
Nimue’s eyes darkened, somehow becoming colder. “It is you who misunderstands child. And you would be smart to mind your words around those far wiser than yourself.”
Fee opened her mouth, then seeming to realize who she was up against, shut it without saying a word.
Jensen stared in disbelief, having never thought she’d see the day when Tinkerbell backed down from anybody.
“Step away from the girl,” a male elf said suddenly. He was handsome with deep blue eyes and pin-straight, golden locks that skimmed his shoulders.
Liam’s hands fisted at his sides as he eased forward, angling his body in front of Jensen. “Father, if you would give me a moment to—”
Disapproval shone in the older elf’s eyes. He raised his hand and Liam fell silent. “I think you’ve said enough already. This girl was raised to believe that she and Lorelei were sisters, but that is an untruth.”
“And she knows that now,” Liam bit out through gritted teeth. His whole body had tensed. His wings flapped stiffly behind him and his demeanor reminded Jensen of a rubber band on the verge of popping.
Nimue’s tinkling laughter filled the air, bringing to mind the image of an alley cat attacking a sleigh bell. “I surmise she has known it all along.”
With that, Jensen found herself wondering if an insane asylum somewhere in Faery was missing a patient. Irritation making her stupid, she stepped from behind Liam, meeting Nimue’s gaze. “And what would make you think that? You don’t even know me.”
Nimue’s smile deepened, but there was nothing even remotely kind about the look in her eyes. “How could you not know?” she asked, icily. “After all, you’re her daughter.”
Then Eiden’s fist smashed into Jensen’s head, before she realized he had even moved.
***
Jensen awoke to find her arms tied behind her back and the rest of her body crying out in agony. Cold concrete pressed into her face, adding a painful chill to an already dull headache. Dampness coated her wrists letting her know that iron had been used to bind them. Without looking, she knew that dampness held a crimson tinge.
Darkness clung to her like a second skin and for a moment, she wondered if this was the place faeries went when they died, a nowhereland where they would suffer in solitude. Then a smarter part of her pointed out that dead faeries wouldn�
��t feel pain, while she, on the other hand, was currently pain’s bitch.
After laying there for a moment longer, she bent her knees and pulled herself up into a seating position, her stomach lurching soon after.
A light flickered across the room and her gaze lifted. The blurry yellow orb swung back and forth in slow half circles. A will o’ wisp? It took a few seconds and about a dozen blinks for her vision to adjust, then she found herself staring at a blank-faced Eiden. She gasped, jumping and banging her head against the wall.
Eiden leaned cross-legged against the opposite wall, with a strange looking crystal swinging from his wrist. The fiery will o’ wisp inside squealed its tiny head off as it bounced around, casting shadows across Eiden’s face that made him appear horrible and beautiful at the same time. “Oh good, you’re awake,” he said, dryly. “It shouldn’t be long now.”
Jensen blinked. “What shouldn’t be long?” Her voice was so hoarse it came out as nothing more than a whisper.
But instead of answering, Eiden offered her his back, banging on the door beside him.
“Eiden, what’s happening?” Jensen hated how desperate she sounded, begging for information from the very elf who betrayed her. But she had little choice in the matter. He was the only one in the room who wasn’t knocked out while plans were being made. “Eiden please.”
The door swung open and Eiden stepped out, not looking back even once. “Your fate will be decided soon,” he said in an emotionless voice. Then he slammed the door behind him, casting the room into total darkness.
Chapter Thirteen
A couple of hours passed before anyone showed up again, hours Jensen spent fighting to keep Nimue’s claims from invading her thoughts. Allowing herself even a moment to toy with the idea of Lauren being her mother meant she would have to accept the fact that her own mom didn’t want her. That hurt too much to even consider. Lauren was overburdened, inherently flawed, and beyond complicated. But damn it, they were sisters, no matter what some crazed faerie carrying around the oldest grudge in history had to say about it.
Jensen sighed and leaned her head against the damp cement walls. She could barely smell the mildew anymore, though a bitter taste remained in her mouth. Everything about her prison cell pointed to it being a basement. She just couldn’t figure out if she was still in the mortal world or locked up somewhere in Faery.
Shimmerspell: The Shimmer Trilogy, #1 Page 6