by Leia Stone
Elle and I didn’t speak, we just flew with the giant, nearly seven-foot-tall Fae in our arms. He’d lost so much blood now that his complexion was pale white, his wings ashy gray.
When we finally set our feet down in front of the safe house cottage, I’d broken a sweat and felt like I was going to collapse. My arms burned and my wings felt like Jell-O, fatigued and weak. It seemed my training regimen needed an upgrade. Dragging him over to the blue door, I placed my blood-coated hand over it and it clicked open.
“That was fast—” Mara cut off as she saw Elle and I carrying the half dead Dark Fae into her laundry room. Reaching behind her, she pulled a shotgun and pointed it at his chest.
“No!” I shouted, throwing myself over him. “He’s my soulmate!”
Saying those words out loud … to her … it was crazy. Me laying my body over a Son of fucking Darkness in protection was even crazier. I didn’t recognize myself.
Mara looked then at the faint blue light pulsing between our chests.
“No,” she breathed.
It was dimmer than before, but still quite the lightshow. His soul was in distress. “Mara … I can’t let him die.”
A thousand emotions crossed her face. Bashur entered the hallway, took one look at the scene and then growled, but she quieted him with a snap of her fingers.
“My mom would never let my soulmate die. Do this for her.” It was a shitty thing to do, to play on her emotions like that, but I was desperate. I could feel him losing life—because it felt like I was losing life.
“The elders will kill him if they see him,” Mara said, and then her hands started to glow a hazy purple. She clapped and the blue light between our chests ceased. “That will wear off soon,” she told me.
“Lily, sneak him to your house,” Mara barked. “Elle, you get Kira and pay for her silence. If the elders catch you, tell them he’s a prisoner of war and you intend to interrogate and torture him.” She left briefly and returned, handing Elle a stack of gold Fae coins.
“Can’t we heal him here?” Elle took the coins and suddenly his body was lifting up into the air as Mara seemingly levitated him across her kitchen floor, the slow drip, drip, drip, of his blood spotting everything.
“He’s on death’s door. He needs the healing energy of Faerie if he’s going to make it.”
Oh gods.
Before I knew it, we were in her office, Liam draped across Elle’s and my lap and we were spinning.
When I opened the door into Faerie, it was bustling with people. Mid-day.
Shit.
Mara rubbed her chin. “You’ll need a distraction.” Placing two fingers into her mouth, she whistled loud and strong. There was scratching at one of the back doors of her office, and when she opened it, Bashur was there.
“You need to create a distraction so the girls can get to Lily’s,” she told him. He barked in understanding and then took off outside. He took a right, away from my house, and a moment later screams rang throughout the village. Fae started to fly towards the commotion from all over, and Elle and I took that as our sign to go.
“Thanks, Mara.” I looked back at the portal keeper. She was frowning, looking from Liam to me.
Ignoring her look, I ran out of the blue door that was etched into the cave. “Get the healer,” I told Elle.
The moment we stepped into Faerie, Liam stirred. I set his legs down as Elle ran off to grab Kira. “Can you walk?” I asked and started to half drag him down the street, knife sticking out of his stomach.
His eyes opened and then widened, looking around in wonder. His color was a little better, his wings a little brighter.
He was able to shuffle, leaning against me as we walked. “Is this…?” He looked around at the river on our right, and the tall village houses on our left. We were almost to mine. I lived only a few minutes’ walk to the blue door.
“We’re in Faerie. I’ve called a healer,” I told him.
His eyes widened even more but he said nothing, only gave me a sideways glance that seemed to be trying to sum me up. Probably wondering what the hell I was doing bringing him here. I was wondering the same thing myself. He clearly didn’t know what the blue light was. He had no idea I was his soulmate.
“Here…” I opened the door to my house, which was always left unlocked, and prayed no one had seen us. Shutting the door behind me, I lowered Liam onto the couch in my living room. When my mother’s scent wafted up from the pillows and overwhelmed me, my face fell. Hadn’t she warned me of the Sons? Hadn’t she on her death bed told me to protect Faerie from them? What would she think now that I had brought one into our very home?
His legs started to tremble, and I chewed my lip nervously as he simply stared at the ceiling.
“This place … feels like … being near a crystal.” His breath was short, voice weak.
I nodded. “The crystals keep our world alive. Keep us alive. That’s why we need them back.” Maybe I could talk some sense into this guy. Get him on my side.
When his cold hard gaze landed on me, chills broke out onto my arms. “Without them … we die. Your mother…” He spat her name like it was venom in his mouth and took a shaky breath. “She took the last crystal from me and I lost my best friend … because of her.”
Fuck.
“But … we need them too,” I argued. My mom killed his best friend? Or maybe she just took the crystal … and that killed him. But it was basically the same thing. I was about to retort and say that his dad killed my mom when my front door burst open.
Kira took one look at the unconscious Dark Fae on my couch and sighed. “Oh hell, Lily, what have you done?”
It took Kira the better part of the day to heal Liam. She took one look at the wicked blade she’d pulled from his gut and determined it was Fae made. I wasn’t sure what the hell that meant. I’d lost track of how many bad guys there were in this scenario. Were some of the Fae who fled with their halfling children still out there on Earth? I just didn’t know. Mara had done something to encapsulate our blue, fated, mate lightshow, but I think Kira had sensed it. We’d all gone to school together and she was pretty cool.
When Elle went to pay her extra for her silence, she’d shrugged it off. “Just get him out the second he wakes,” she said and left.
It took me two hours to convince Elle I was okay on my own with him, that he wouldn’t hurt me. Truthfully, I had no idea, but my gut told me he wouldn’t. That day when he’d shoved me in the closet rather than kill me, it spoke volumes.
“I’ll check on you first thing in the morning,” Elle said and left.
Now the sun was setting and I found myself just sitting there staring at his face. He was majorly hot—for a Dark Fae who was hell-bent on seeing my people wiped out of course. His full lips and fair skin reminded me of the Winter Court Fae, but his light hair … that was not of our world. Only normies had blond hair; we had yellow hair, and orange and black and brown and every color of the rainbow, but the blond of a normie was unique to our world. Not a lot of Winter Fae made it before the world fell, but there were a few. Maybe I could pretend just for a little while that he was Winter Court and not a Son of Darkness halfling…
As I was staring at him, he started to stir and I popped up onto my knees, grabbing a glass of water.
He tried to sit up and winced, falling backward against my couch. “Relax, here, have some water.” I held the cup to his lips and reached my other hand under his head. His eyes found mine as he drank the cool liquid and they flared with intensity. After I set the water down, he looked out the living room window. I had the curtain peeled back about six inches, just enough to let in a little moonlight. You could see a swath of the river, and that seemed to be what held his gaze.
“This place … it’s beautiful. Magical.” His voice was rough.
I’d been brewing over an idea for the past six hours, and if I didn’t get the nerve up to say it, I probably never would. “What if I appealed to the elders to allow your people to live here
too? Then we wouldn’t need to fight over the crystals, and we could all live together in har—” He reached out and grasped my wrist, hard.
“Don’t ever let them in here. They’ll burn it to the ground.”
My face fell. “But you’re—”
“I’m different,” he stated. “They have no intention of ever setting foot here again. They want to create—” He seemed to realize who he was speaking to and cut his words off, dropping my wrist. Grasping the edges of the couch, he tried to sit up, and blood promptly soaked his shirt. “I need to check on my men.” He winced as he tried to stand.
My eyes bugged at the sight of the blood. I planted two hands on his chest. When my palms met his rock-hard muscle, I shoved him back onto the couch. “You need to heal!” I growled.
As he fell backward, he reached out and grasped my upper arms to stabilize himself. He weighed a bajillion pounds, and as he fell, I fell with him, trying to adjust my body so that I didn’t reinjure him. Splitting my legs open, I straddled him, and landing right on his lap, my pink hair fanned around us and I looked down at him. He looked up at me with a molten gaze and his wings … rippled with orange glowing magic.
“I risked my life to save you,” I growled, “the least you can do is stay the night to heal.”
His hands fell away from my arms and trailed down my back slowly. Goosebumps broke out on my skin as his fingers caressed my wings. Touching another Fae’s wings was an intimate thing … and the way he did it, with such delicacy, had heat building in my core. The blue light pulsed then, sharp and fast between us both, lighting up his features.
“What is the blue light?” he asked, looking up at me, our faces a mere three inches away from each other.
I’d never wanted someone to kiss me so badly and I’d never felt so wrong about it.
The blue light. How the fuck did you explain that to a guy who didn’t grow up in this world? You didn’t.
I panicked, spouting the first lie I could think of. “It means … we’re both Fae. The same race.”
He frowned. “I’ve met Fae before and it’s never happened.”
Why was I still sitting on him? Why were his hands still stroking my wings?
I gulped.
“It means…” Without another thought, I leaned forward and captured his mouth in a kiss. Opening my legs, I settled my hips onto him, getting closer as his breath hitched, sucking in mine. When my lips crashed onto his, I wasn’t sure what to expect. Would he throw me across the room? Pick up this dagger and try to kill me?
His mouth opened, deepening the kiss as his hands slipped down the back of my wings to cup my ass. When our tongues touched, a warm buzz tingled all the way down my throat to my belly. Even with my eyes closed, I could see the blue light dancing beneath us. It was back alive and brighter than ever. He sucked my bottom lip into his mouth and I moaned, causing him to grab my ass. I let my fingers trail down his hard chest, feeling the taut muscles there when he grasped both sides of my face and wrenched me back.
“We can’t,” he growled. It was like someone had poured ice water over me. I pulled myself back and nodded as my cheeks reddened.
What the full-on fucking fuck am I doing?
His shirt was soaked with blood. I was going to kill him grinding on him like that. Stupid idiot. He was a damn Dark Fae. Halfling. Monster. And I was making out with him over some blue light? Backing up, he barely removed his hands from my ass to let me go. Once I was off of the couch and my mind had cleared, I nodded.
“You need rest,” I told him, although my body really, really, wanted him to need other things. What the hell was I doing?
Making out with my people’s sworn enemy.
From the coffee table, I grabbed the pain tonic Kira had left and poured a capful.
“Numb berry juice. It will help the pain and you can get some rest.” I held the cup of pink juice to his lips, while his glowing amber eyes stared back at me. He paused, unmoving for a full half minute.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” I told him.
Finally, he opened his mouth and the liquid poured down his throat. “Maybe you should,” he said, and closed his eyes.
Maybe I should. I glanced at the Fae blade sitting on the table, crusted with blood up to the hilt. It would be so easy to end his life, but I could never do that. I knew now that if it were him or a crystal, I would choose him. I was also fully aware of how insane that sounded considering he was my sworn enemy. I just needed to find a way that we could both live together on the same side.
After an hour, my thoughts grew heavy. I tried reading a book, but my lids were closing. I decided a small nap would do me good, so I curled up in the large reading chair next to the sofa and fell fast asleep.
When I woke, it was because the entire house was shaking.
“What the…?” I leapt up, heart hammering in my chest. Immediately my eyes fell to the couch. Nothing but a small bloodstain.
Fuck! He was gone, but there on the coffee table was a note scrawled in messy writing. It sat right next to the blood-covered knife. My house shook more violently, and I let my wings flutter, taking me up off of the ground. Earthquake? Faerie didn’t have earthquakes. Not since the dark times. Hovering over the coffee table, I picked up the note.
You have six. We have six. Call it even and don’t come looking for the crystals anymore.
-L
My heart fell into my stomach. After that kiss … he just … left? Panic seized me as I thought of how he had left. He couldn’t open the blue door, which meant he was stuck here. I sat there suspended in midair for a moment until the shaking finally stopped, then I flew for the front door, shoving the letter in my pocket.
Throwing the door wide open, I came face to face with Indra. She was panicked and looked stricken. “The Tree of Life … it’s dying.”
Oh gods. If Liam touched our tree, I would kill him myself. “How?”
Indra’s face was pulled taut with anxiety. “You must retrieve the final six crystals. We need them now more than ever before.”
My brow furrowed. “Indra, yesterday everything was fine. Has something happened?”
Because if Liam took more crystals or screwed something up, I would feel so guilty.
She sighed. “There is one thing I have yet to tell you.”
Oh gods.
“I don’t think I can take any more secrets,” I confessed.
She nodded. “But this you must know.”
Grasping my hand, she lifted up off of the ground and flew towards the elder home. The Tree of Life. I followed her wordlessly, scanning the village looking for one escaped Dark Fae. If they found Liam, I was so screwed. When my eyes fell on the blue door, my brow furrowed at the huge crack in the base of the door.
Did the earthquake do that? Or … Liam?
We reached the elders’ home and stepped inside. There was a slight crack running through the entire house, stopping at the base of the elder tree. A gasp escaped me at the sight of one of the tree’s limbs sickly black and ill. It was shriveled and looked like it were about to fall off.
“How?”
It had to have been Liam. He was the only change from yesterday.
I was such an idiot!
Indra walked to the back of the home, where I heard hushed voices whispering. I followed her until we came to a door that was hidden right behind the tree. It was ajar and I recognized Kira’s voice. “She’s slipping away,” the healer was saying.
I frowned. Someone was dying?
Indra stepped into the room, cleared her throat, and I followed her awkwardly.
The other three elders and Kira bowed their heads slightly as we walked in.
My eyes immediately fell to the limp form lying on a crystal bed.
For a moment I had an out of body experience. For just a split second I thought it was my mother and I actually gasped. Then I saw the differences. The nose was sharper, chin more defined, but still … the resemblance was uncanny.
“Who … i
s that?” I asked, fighting the dizziness that threatened to overwhelm me.
“Is she stable enough for the next few moments?” Indra asked Kira, ignoring my question. Kira nodded and her eyes flicked to mine, but neither of us said a word. I prayed she kept my secret about Liam.
When the Winter elder passed, he lowered his head. “Indra, are you sure the child can—?”
“Out,” she ordered sharply, and nerves chewed at my gut. The rest of the elders scurried from the room, Rose giving me a sad nod as she passed. Kira left as well, leaving just Indra and I alone with a woman who looked like my fucking mother.
Just what the hell kind of secrets was my mother hiding?
When they had left, shutting the door behind them, Indra turned to face me. “This woman was formally Princess Dahlia of Spring Court, and now is formally the only living queen of Faerie, and she’s … your aunt.”
To my credit, I didn’t laugh. No, instead, my knees gave out and I collapsed to the ground in shock. How does a Fae with wings fall? I don’t know, but in that moment I couldn’t stay upright anymore.
Indra gave me a compassionate look and sat down on the floor in front of me, crossing her legs.
She looked at the woman on the bed. “Your mother, Violet, and Queen Dahlia share the same mother, but different fathers. They’re half-sisters. Your mother was born … out of wedlock.”
Oh.
Well it happened from time to time. I never knew my grandparents. They died in the Dark War.
“Okay…” I said.
Indra’s eyebrows raised. “Royal lineage is a very, very, big deal. Our people are tied to our royalty and our royalty is tied to our land. That’s why Spring is the only court left that hasn’t fallen. She keeps us alive, she keeps this small bit of Faerie alive.”
Holy shit.
“But the crystals … I thought they—”
Indra nodded. “They do. The queen needs the crystals to keep the tree healthy.”
It hit me then. “The tree, she’s … connected to it?”
Indra looked solemnly at the bed, nodding her head. “When the crystals were taken, Queen Dahlia bound her soul to the tree to keep it alive until your mother could bring them back. Only replacing all twelve will bring her back from where she slumbers. Only then can she restore Faerie.”