by Kim Faulks
“No one’s coming yet,” I sucked in a breath and took a step closer to the Seelie. “Are you sick?”
There was twitch at the corner of his lips, and a shake of his head. “Seelie don’t have any illnesses. We don’t get sick.”
“Looks like you do now,” Rival skirted the Seelie, staring at his face. “You look like hell.”
Twilforth shook his head, raised his hand and swiped his brow. A hunk of hair came away in his fingers. Long silver strands floated to the darkened forest floor to mingle with the rotting silver leaves.
“Fuck,” Rival muttered as Twilforth turned his head, took one look at me, and then crumpled to the ground.
Rival lunged after him, grasping his arm, and then pressed two fingers to his neck. “Fuck…fuck!” He lifted his head, eyes blazing with the orange fires of Hell. “The dude’s dead…he’s fucking dead!”
My pulse quickened, thundering inside my ears. I shook my head. This can’t be happening. Not fucking happening.
“It’s your blood, dude,” Rival growled. “Has to be. Jesus fucking Christ, your blood killed him.”
“We don’t know that,” Gabriel murmured and took a step closer, staring at the unmoving Seelie.
“We don’t know that?” Rival snarled and turned to pace the forest floor. He raked his fingers through his hair and fisted the strands. “We’re fucked…we’re so fucked.”
I lifted my hand, staring at the cut across my palm and then at the dead body of the only one who could’ve helped us. And all I thought about was Lorn. Something crashed through the trees deeper in the forest. Something fucking big was heading toward us.
“We gotta go,” Rival shoved up from the body. “Like now.”
“Go where, genius?” Gabriel muttered, and scanned the thick forest.
The sound of marching boots echoed behind me, followed with a roar of command in a language I didn’t understand. They were hunting us…everything was hunting us.
Rival jerked his gaze toward the crash of trees as that thing headed our way and took a slow step backwards. “In the opposite direction from that and them.”
He took one step backwards and then turned.
I’d never seen the Hellhound move so fast.
Gabriel was hot on his heels, tearing between thickened trunks like a flash of white in the night. I took one glance at the Seelie who’d drunk my blood only moments before and then took after them—we came for Lorn.
All we had to do was stay alive…
Chapter Twelve
Redemption
My heart gave a shudder as darkness descended…
Black mist bloomed in my mind, and then swept me away with the kind of savage hunger that made my bones scream.
And in the agony,
…in the infernal brutality,
The Unseelie world rose up like a gallant warrior to claim its own.
Darkness morphed into another. Black moved on black as a silver thread unraveled in my hand and tangled in my fingers.
The thread of existence.
My existence.
The silver ends were frayed, splintered, and stripped until they flapped in the wind around me…there was no putting them back together…no tying the ends back together once more.
It was what it was…
Nothing, finality…loss…
And then came my memories…
They slipped through the gaps of my fingers like confetti, falling into an ocean of darkness. Lorn filled my head, the first moment I saw her in that bar, so long ago…and at the end, when she lay unconscious in my arms.
Hunger roared, drawing me deeper into the abyss, until I cracked open my eyes.
I was home. Home in the Unseelie realm, its cold earth beneath my body, the frigid scent of moss and hate in my lungs. Something sharp poked into my side as I inhaled deeper and clenched my fist around something cold and hard.
The blade…
Gold shone faintly in the dark…I stared at the smooth hilt in my palm until, in the distance, something moved. Energy danced across my skin. I felt everything here, just as I would if I were still alive.
My senses were sharp, eyes adjusted to the gloom as though I’d never been away from this world.
“You!” A hiss came from my right. “You betrayed us!”
The hag rose in front of me, the shredded ends of its shroud snagging on the willow brush as it moved and then tore free. The sound carried through the trees. My hand closed around the hilt of my dagger as pain tore through my chest.
The boom inside my ears was deafening. I shoved against the ground, pushing myself upright as the hag moved closer. “She will tear you apart, guardian.”
The fragments of memories that’d slipped through my fingers surfaced.
Absolon…
Hell…
Lorn…
The Queen…
My Queen. I lifted my eyes to the edge of the tree line. There was a faint glow in the distance. A beacon in the dark, and my heart thundered in response. She was there, waiting for me, just as she had since the day I turned my back on my world and its people.
Lorn was here…somewhere.
The hag lunged, slashing out with wicked claws. I moved fast, rising up to catch its wrist, and dragged the beast closer. “Daughter of Lucifer, where is she, hag?”
“How should I know, betrayer?” The beast spat.
I winced at the foul breath and stared into its red eyes. “You will tell me what I want to know…alive or dead, have it your way.”
I raised the dagger into the air and watched the beast’s eyes brighten. “The King’s dagger,” it hissed. “You still have it?”
I yanked the hag closer, “Yes, I still have it. Now, tell me where Lorn is!”
“The Queen…she has a little pet, warrior. She’s been playing, and feeding, but what she has been feeding it, who knows. Lies…truths, all sorts of things,” the beast sniggered and its fetid breath washed over me.
I shoved the thing away, let the hag stumble backwards into the dark and then lifted my head to the faint glow in the Queen’s castle.
My heart slowed, the beat heavy, sending an ache through my chest until it was all I could feel. Lorn’s face filled my mind as I took a step and stumbled. Tendrils of the spelled forest lashed out to strike, until I turned my head. “Cut me and I’ll burn every fucking inch of you to the ground.”
The dark tendril lowered, and then slunk backwards through the sticks and the decomposing leaves. The Unseelie world was one living, breathing beast, yet it wasn’t alive—not really.
I walked the walls of its bones, trampled through the forest of its belly and found no life—nothing more than the same trees forever frozen standing upright. The same rotting stench of leaves and dirt. I’d walked away from this world and never once wanted to come back.
Until she made me.
Twigs snapped under my boot as I made my way through the forest to where the edge met the Queen’s grounds. There was no me here anymore, no sense of my own safety or protection. There was only Lorn…
I crossed the ground, feeling the crunch of the pebbles under my boots, just as I had a thousand times, and focused on the castle steps.
Cold…numb. This world crawled under my skin once more. Step after step, the yellow glow became brighter, until I lifted my boot and climbed the first of the castle steps.
She was in there…waiting for her meal to crawl to her like the fucking snake she was. Hate rolled around in my belly. It was all I had to survive on now. All I had to consume.
The Queen…she has a little pet, warrior. She’s been playing, and feeding, but what she has been feeding it, who knows. Lies…truths, all sorts of things.
I knew just what shit Mab would be ramming down Lorn’s throat. I swallowed hard and stopped at the front door before I reached for the handle.
Would the castle still recognize me? Would it still welcome me within its stony walls? The realm did. It took from my body as though I’d never left at all.
Once an Unseelie…always an Unseelie.
I gripped the handle and pushed. The door swung inwards without a sound, welcoming. I stepped inside and closed the door behind me. The lock turned on its own with a snap, locking me in.
Fear spille, like liquid ice through my bones. I left the door behind me and made my way into the foyer. For a second, it felt like I hadn’t been gone at all.
Ballrooms speared off to the side. They were empty now. But there once was a time when they were filled to overflowing and every high-caste Unseelie was invited into its clutches.
The rooms became alive then, hell, the entire castle was buzzing with the kind of energy that was almost mortal.
I stared into its inky depths, but not anymore…
Now it was a decomposing shell, rotting from the inside.
They could blame me all they wanted, but the necrotic root was steeped in royal blood. I turned away from the empty ballroom now, just as I had on that night…
The night when freedom almost cost my life.
I would’ve gladly paid, if it wasn’t for Lorn’s mother—a mortal woman caught up in a war she never wanted. A war that’d cost her her life.
My footsteps were silent as I moved deeper into belly of the beast. Cold, bitter stench welled in my lungs, and there it stayed.
I turned left, through the door that led into the kitchen, and then right into the dining room. The faint scent of meat and herbs lingered…a stew of some kind. I stepped into something soft and heard a squelch. The sickening smell of acid and vomit filled my nose. Stew that hadn’t stayed down.
My stomach tightened, and every savage fantasy billowed up. Did she poison Lorn? Did she cut out Lorn’s heart to eat it herself? Was Lorn even alive?
I closed my eyes and felt my body sway. Yes, yes, she was alive. I had to believe that—believe that the death of my body wasn’t for nothing. That there was still a chance I could fix what I’d done.
I lifted my head and opened my eyes to the heavy darkness that clung to the walls. Hate walked these hallways. I felt it in the pit of my soul.
And before my time here was done, hate would walk once again.
But first…first I needed to become someone else.
Someone who groveled at the feet of a woman who despised him.
And begged forgiveness.
I strode forward, leaving the dining room behind, and with each step I felt the man I was slip away to become the man I had been. The cold-hearted bastard who tortured, who maimed and slaughtered.
Warmth bled from my veins, leaving cold, empty rage behind. There was nothing left for me now…nothing but the end, and that was all I focused on as I stepped along the hallway. I never turned my head as I passed the consort’s bedroom…never stared at the gold edges on the black furniture—never counted the steps from that bedroom to hers…not anymore.
Movement slithered in the distance. Dark mist clung to the walls, and then pulled backwards. This place was filled with her. From its stony walls to the empty rooms and its midnight mist.
Just like she was, empty.
I strode along the hallway, past the bathrooms and the guest suites, and slowed at the doorway to the throne room before I stopped.
The fires were roaring inside, casting a yellow glow against the floor of the doorway. Fear filled me, the kind that nails your feet to the ground, and for a second, there was not a thing I could do to push myself forward.
I took a breath and the burn moved deeper, past my lungs…and into nothing—for nothing was all I had left.
My feet moved on their own, one small step, and then another, arcing through the flickering lights. I counted twelve guards around her from the corner of my eye…but I never turned my head. Never caught their stare, never sized up the warrior under their skin. Never measured the beat of their Unseelie hearts.
It didn’t matter; in the end, I’d kill every last one of them—for Lorn.
Movement came from the corner of the room. The sudden catch of breath made my knees tremble. The scent of her fear gripped me with taloned claws. Still I stepped closer, carving a line across the room to stop at the feet of the woman I once loved.
The Queen of the Unseelie never lifted her head, only stared at that corner of the room, never once meeting my gaze. My nerves trembled…senses screamed. I clenched my jaw as my eyes watered. “My Queen.”
There was a twitch at the corner of her lips. My gaze traced the curved line of her blood-red lips, remembering a time long ago…
“Who are you?” she murmured, and then turned her head. Cold dark eyes bored into mine. They were the eyes of an animal—of a beast. “How dare you invade my home.”
I swallowed hard. It was just a game…just a cruel game I’d once learned to play so very well. “I am but a humble servant,” I lowered my head, bowing before her, “asking my Queen for a precious moment of her time.”
“Redemption…no,” Lorn whimpered.
My body trembled, fighting the urge to turn my head and find her. I clenched my fists, staring at the edges of a black lace gown spilled at the base of the throne.
“Why?” Mab murmured.
My will trembled. I swallowed hard. There was no begging for the Queen of Air and Darkness.
“To ask for mercy…” I lifted my head, meeting her gaze, “and to return to my rightful duties by your side.”
Midnight eyes glinted with the kind of look that made my skin crawl. “You’re not worthy.”
One of the guards shifted. His hand dropped to the hilt of his blade. So this was her latest prisoner. I could smell his disease from here. “No, I’m not worthy. I never was, and yet you took a chance on me once before. I’m hoping you’ll do the same again. I served you well, my Queen. Better than anyone that’d come before me, and after.”
The growl in my words reverberated through the room. The glint in her eyes sharpened, there was a curl at the corner of her lips. The men around her, including her latest toy didn’t know her, not really…not the way I had.
I’d never treated her like a Queen. I treated her like a woman.
My words lingered in the air, the challenge unanswered.
The poor bastard at her side looked to her for guidance…and that was the biggest chink in his armor. He was weak, even under the towering suits of flesh and blood, he was fucking weak…
“I will pay my debts,” I took a step closer, holding her gaze. “And take my place at your side. And we will be a force to be reckoned with once more.”
There was a catch of her breath, the sound so very subtle, if you couldn’t read her, you’d never know it was there.
But that was the one thing I excelled at…reading her.
She couldn’t fight me, not forever, and that dark need inside seeped out into the air, bitter, and foul, tinged with the sweetness and seductiveness of lust.
I was the horse unbroken. The one she’d whipped, she’d clawed…she’d ridden…and yet there was a part of me that remained intact. The part that hated her. The part that wanted her dead.
“Do you come to me of your own free will, warrior?” the Queen murmured.
And on anyone else’s lips, it might’ve been seductive.
But not her…never her…
Goosebumps raced across my body. I swallowed, and tried to still the shake in my voice. I never turned my head, never looked at Lorn, even though my eyes watered and my will strained.
My heart thundered, booming inside my ears as the word slipped free. “Yes.”
There was a twitch at the corner of her lips before she rose from the obsidian throne. Jagged edges glinted like glass as the black lace gown she wore swept across its edges and then left it bare.
The guard beside her shook his head. “Mistress…”
“And you’re willing to obey me…unlike last time…” she murmured and turned toward me.
It was like her guard wasn’t even there…like no one was here. She saw me, and only me. Just like I knew she would.
&nb
sp; “Yes.” I forced the word through gritted teeth.
“There’ll be consequences…public consequences, you understand,” soft, solemn words lied. Her eyes were ablaze at the thought of me in agony.
I closed my eyes. The nod was a tremor, but she didn’t seem to care…she barely even noticed. “Yes.”
“Redemption,” Lorn whimpered. I could almost hear the trail of thick tears down her cheeks. “Don’t do this. I’m begging you. You don’t know what she’s really like...”
Mab turned her head, to stare at the woman I loved, and for a second my purpose trembled like fragile ground.
Kill her.
The whisper was a roar inside my head. I shifted my stance and the hilt of the dagger dug into my side. Black lace trailed the ground near my feet. She was so close now…all I had to do was draw the knife and take two steps.
She’d be dead before her guard even moved.
Her blood spilling across the throne room floor.
Would anyone weep for her?
And then what? You’d have to finish the line…kill Absolon…and leave the entire Unseelie race without a leader. I flinched at the thought. Didn’t think it through, did you?
“Oh, I think you’re very much mistaken,” Mab whispered and took a step closer, but not to Lorn…to me. I closed my eyes as she trailed her fingers along my arm. “I think you’ll find Redemption knows me very well…very well, indeed.”
“Redemption?” Lorn murmured. I winced with the edge of betrayal in her voice. “What is she talking about?”
I opened my eyes and plummeted down into the darkness, and the cold…down to where nothing waited.
“Redemption?”
“You think you’re someone special?” Mab snarled as she stared at Lorn. “You think he belonged to you?” I saw it now. All the lies and the pretense—all that untapped rage seething under the surface, just waiting for a moment, and this was her moment. “He was mine long before he met you, and he’ll be mine long after you’re gone.”
“Fuck you!” Lorn snarled, and a tremor of fear raced through my soul. “Fuck you, you jealous fucking bitch.”
“Lorn,” my desperation was a snarl. I jerked my gaze toward her and for the first time since I’d stepped into the throne room, I allowed myself to see her.