The Witch's Quest

by Michele Hauf

  “I couldn’t have done it with anyone else. Now...” He shrugged, feeling itchy to return to normal. Tugging off his T-shirt, he tossed that aside. “Let’s do this!”

  “All right!” She went around behind him and he thought he heard her brushing something across the grass.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I’m trying to get as much of the demon blood off as I can.”

  “Good call.” Kelyn leaned forward, catching his hands in the thick grass.

  A sprite buzzed nearby. The creature was no larger than a bumblebee, but she was as perfectly formed as most humans, with wings, and wore tiny pink petals as a dress. She buzzed back and forth before his nose until he had to swat at her to make her stop. But he did so carefully.

  “Do you notice the insect buzzing is getting louder?” Valor asked.

  “Maybe they’re upset about us being in their territory.” He shrugged again. “Do it now, please?”

  At first touch of the wet, sticky base of a wing to his back, Kelyn felt the sensation vibrate through his being as a weird electric current that touched all nerve endings beneath his skin. He flinched, but Valor held the wing in place. And when she immediately placed another wing on his back, heat rushed through at the point of connection. The last two she set against his skin at the same time, doubling the strange jolt of vita that at once hurt, but then seemed to cool and glow all over his skin.

  At his wrists another cool burn revitalized the violet sigils. He felt the same icy cut as they drew in curves and mandalas into his chest.

  He gasped and his body seized up, his back arching. The wings were fusing to him and it was more painful than the phantom pains he’d experienced. Yet he smiled through it all. They were back. And soon he would be the man he once was.

  “Whoa!” Valor stumbled and fell into the grass beside him.

  “What happened?”

  “I think some of your faery vita repulsed me. It’s powerful stuff. Yikes!” She shook her hand. Kelyn noticed a pale blue vine shooting up from the grass that attempted to twine about her wrist, but she managed to unloose it. And when she stood, she gasped with awe. “Wow, your wings are... Oh, Kelyn, can you feel them?”

  “Yes, they’re almost completely restored. How do they look?”

  He tried flapping them and was able to move each independently and then all four in tandem. The sweep of air against his face from the movement felt great. Familiar.

  “Oh...” Valor’s utterance felt unfinished. Like it should have ended with the invocation of a TV doctor’s name.

  “What? Valor, tell me. Did something go wrong? It doesn’t hurt anymore. I think I should give flight a try.”

  “Oh, Kelyn.”

  He stood, feeling his old and familiar strength surge through his system like blood rushing back to an unused limb. Mighty and renewed, he spread out his arms and looked to Valor, who sat on the ground, hands supporting her and mouth open in a horrified gape.

  “What?” he asked.

  “Your wings,” she said. “They’re black.”

  Chapter 24

  Her gorgeous lover, the man with whom she had fallen desperately in love, stood before her renewed and strong. His fists were tight and veined, wrapped with fierce power. His abs and chest, ornamented with the violet sigil markings, were like steel. Broad shoulders stretched proudly back. And behind him, his wings gleamed...black.

  When once his wings had been violet and silver, shimmery with life and boldness, now they swept out behind him, tattered and the blackest black. More so than his brother Blade’s gothic wings. Yet Kelyn wielded them as if he knew nothing else and they hadn’t changed.

  Perhaps they had not changed? Was it merely the demon’s blood that had altered their appearance but not their original goodness?

  “Black?” Kelyn looked over a shoulder and preened one wing forward with a hand. “Huh. Yep. They’re black. I’ll survive.”

  “You’ll...” He was being obnoxiously dismissive about what she felt had to be a horrible change. Maybe the wings needed a little time to readjust to Kelyn’s body and reacclimate? “Right. You will survive. We should probably get the heck out of here while the getting is good. Where’s Matilda?”

  “There!” He pointed overhead and Valor spied the kestrel soaring toward the silver portal. “Run!” he shouted. “We haven’t much time!”

  Valor took off after the kestrel, combat boots crushing the long grasses, and stirring up the blue-violet pollen in her wake. The insect chirring sounded like a tornado engine. That couldn’t be good.

  Everything would be all right. They’d return to the mortal realm and Kelyn’s wings would return to violet and silver. He’d be as he once had been. Life would move forward. Together.

  Pumping her arms, Valor was thankful her boots were worn and comfortable. She wasn’t much for running, but when survival was at stake? She could manage.

  The portal loomed close ahead. Matilda banked to the left, aiming for the gateway—

  The insect noises had ceased. The only thing Valor heard was her own huffing breaths and the blood pounding through her veins. A split second of wondering if she should stop and look around surfaced. Dread surged to Valor’s throat as she realized the world had gone so still. And she slowed but didn’t stop.

  Something hissed, like a massive snake.

  Turning, even as she kept moving across the grass, she caught a glimpse of the threat. The creature rose from the long grasses in a slithering, sinuous glide. Narrow, pointed wings flapped, pulling it off from the ground. Blue and violet scales covered it from its long head, all down its snaking length, to the tail. A freaking snake with wings? Oh, man, she did not like Faery one bit.

  “Dr. Doug Ross!”

  The creature cawed like an entire unkindness of ravens, then violet flames whipped out of its fanged mouth and snapped up toward Matilda. The flames lashed at the bird’s tail feathers as she banked in the azure sky. But she could not avoid the attack. The kestrel screeched and went down like a cannonball, landing in the grass before the undulating portal.

  Valor screamed and the sound alerted the creature. A monster snake? She turned completely and picked up her speed toward the portal, seeing a smoking mist rising from Matilda. Behind her the flapping wings drew closer. The thump of something beating the ground intermittently made her decide it must be hitting the ground with its tail. And the smell of smoke rose as she realized a new sound filled the air.

  That of flames.

  With one glance over her shoulder to see the trail of flame following her in the grass, Valor used her last burst of energy to leap and dive for Matilda. She landed over the bird on all fours, pressing her body down but not completely touching the bird, enough so that she could protect her as a wild path of flame ate through the grass and...

  Valor closed her eyes, muttering a witchy prayer for safety and wishing like hell she had water magic to put out the flames. When finally she lifted her head, the world had again quieted. And...she wasn’t on fire. Yet.

  Still huddling over Matilda, she looked around behind her. The flames had fizzled to smoke. And the only reason they hadn’t gone after her was that she was lying in the cool shadow of the liquid portal. Burned grass smoked all around the oval on which she lay. The shadow had saved her from a burned ass. And death.

  “Blessings,” she whispered.

  Glancing about, she didn’t spy the snake creature. It was gone. Maybe. She’d keep an eye out. It couldn’t have hidden in the grass. It had been so large.

  A snake. A freakin’ snake, of all things!

  Setting her repulsion aside, Valor turned back to the ground. Nestled in the grass lay Matilda. She wasn’t dead, but a few tail feathers smoked from the fire attack that had knocked her out of the sky. Valor wasn’t sure how to handle a bird without ca
using it further harm. Kelyn could do it. He had an affinity with all animals.

  She scanned the meadow. Where was Kelyn? Hadn’t he been behind her? He must have taken off after the snake thing. She called out to him. He’d been right there behind her, telling her to run for it—

  Her heart dropped to her gut. Realization cut her to the bone.

  “John Carter,” she swore. “He’s staying. He knew exactly what he was doing by telling me to run. He knew if I ran through the portal without him... Oh, Kelyn.”

  She bowed her head over Matilda, and the tears rushed up so quickly she couldn’t think to fight them or consider that girls like her didn’t cry. Because she was a real girl. Kelyn had made her realize that. And yet. He’d sent her away. Without him.

  Had he been lying to her all this time? Had he never seen her as she’d only dreamed he could? Had her stupid hopes for a hero been quashed by the man’s blind desires to return to his homeland?

  It hurt to know she’d been used. Had he done that to her? She didn’t want to believe it, but all the past hurts and rejections now came rushing back to plunder her soul. No man would ever have a care for her beyond what she could do for him. Like gaining him access to Faery.

  “I’ve been such a fool!” She beat her thighs, kneeling there beside the inanimate bird. “Why do I let men treat me like this?”

  A chitter of insects stirred nearby. She didn’t care who heard her rant. She needed to shout and scream and...

  Why couldn’t she keep a man interested in her? Did she have to do the skirts-and-heels thing? Kelyn hadn’t seemed concerned about the way she dressed. Maybe it was her stupid, idiotic laugh? But that had seemed to actually turn him on.

  Was it that she was too alpha, always trying to be the one in charge? She had let him take the lead. Hadn’t she?

  Catching her forehead in her palms, she growled in frustration. And yet the portal behind her reminded that she hadn’t the leisure for this ridiculous pouting. Her time to escape this horrid realm could be coming to an end.

  “Right. Suck it up, witch.”

  Something she’d said to herself many times before. And the last time she tried to suck it up, she’d wandered into the Darkwood, to devastating results.

  “Not going to be a fool anymore.” She turned on her knees and looked up at the portal. “I will get out of here. Leave him behind. And never look back.”

  Because Kelyn was doing his own thing now. In...Faery. Exploring. Or whatever it was he felt he had to do in a place he’d always longed to go to. Hell, he’d tossed over the cipher, knowing it somehow connected him and Matilda. Was that why the bird had been struck down? She’d been weakened when Kelyn severed their bond? The man should run off. He had no right to claim friendship with such a majestic creature.

  Valor hoped he flew off forever. With wings that had been tainted by evil.

  “No,” she whispered in protest to her foolish anger.

  Were the tainted wings the reason he’d pushed her away so easily? Given up on Matilda, as well? She wanted to cling to that, but a new resolve tugged her away from the stupid reaction. The man wasn’t interested in her anymore.

  Time to move on.

  The portal undulated, a liquid, silvery oval. Valor had no idea how long it would remain there; it was her escape to the mortal realm. Yet she needed a guide through, and that was Matilda.

  She stroked the bird’s wing and cooed softly. Injured, but how so? Spreading out her hands over the bird, Valor focused her vita downward and whispered a healing charm that would transfer her life force into the bird. She’d never tried it on an animal before, only bees, and even then her healing powers had been minimal. Yet with a touch of vita, a bee could flutter back to the hive to restore its energy on the honey.

  She could heal a boo-boo, ease Kelyn’s aches and pains, but beyond that? “I won’t let you die, Matilda. I’ve got to try this.”

  Something swooped overhead. Still holding her palms to infuse Matilda with her vita, Valor glanced upward. It wasn’t a faery man with black wings. Nor was it the snake creature. Just a bird? Nerves rose to prickle her skin with a fear she hadn’t wanted to acknowledge.

  She did not like being abandoned in a foreign land. How could he have been so cruel?

  “It’s the wings,” she muttered, and pulled back her hands to her hips. “They’ve changed him.” Just as Never and CJ had warned would happen.

  But that didn’t mean she wasn’t walking away from him when she got the chance. He’d made his choice. Now she had to make hers.

  She inspected Matilda. Eyes closed, the bird seemed to be sleeping, so Valor would allow her to rest and let her magic do what healing work it could.

  Standing, she pressed a hand against her forehead to shield her eyes from the brilliance, even though she saw only the two moons. The vibrant sky had grown almost white. It seemed to reflect up from the emerald grass, making her wish she had a pair of sunglasses.

  How to track Kelyn? Did she want to find him? She’d decided to walk away from him. He could do what he wanted now.

  “Unless he was attacked by the snake thing before it went after Matilda?”

  Much as she knew he had not been, a small part of her still wanted to make sure the man was, at the very least, safe. He could stay. That was what he wanted. But she couldn’t leave until she saw him alive.

  Yeah, that was her story, and she was sticking to it.

  She could use her air magic to summon creatures of air and wing, but that might bring back the thing that had attacked Matilda. The other option was to go on a search, which would involve entering the dark forest. And she wasn’t keen on entering any forest in Faery.

  “Summoning spell it is.”

  She clapped her hands decisively and stepped away from Matilda to plant her feet squarely yet still remained within the portal shadow. No telling what the smoking grass might do if she touched that. It could have vicious monster spume in it that would melt her boots. Focusing her energies to her fourth chakra—the air chakra—she spread wide her arms to open her diaphragm. She wasn’t sure her mortal-realm magic would work here in Faery—in proof, Matilda had not remarkably come to from her healing magic—but she had no other option than to try.

  Chanting an invocation to bring forth the creatures of air, she kept one eye peeled for the snake and was prepared to halt the chant if she spied it. Her body hummed as her chant grew faster and deeper and seemed to birth from her lungs and permeate her chest in vibrations that imbued the universe with her will. Forming mudras with forefingers touching her thumbs, she focused the energies to draw what she could toward her.

  And when something landed beside her, and she sensed it was another person—not a snake—Valor opened her eyes to look upon a man who was not Kelyn.

  Tall and lithe, his dark hair listed in the breeze. Silver-eyed, he wore rich, bejeweled clothing that reminded her of something from the nineteenth-century Bohemian times. A violet frock coat hemmed in jewel-glittered lace served as a backdrop for the sparkling rings on his long fingers. A matching glitter twinkled in his eyes. Behind him, magnificent silver wings folded down neatly as he assumed a haughty pose.

  “Who are you?” she asked.

  He quirked an annoyed brow above his silver gaze, as if she was an idiot for not knowing the answer to that one. Propping a hand on a crystal staff that suddenly appeared at his side, he announced, “I am Malrick. King of the Unseelies.”

  * * *

  Kelyn had raced into the dark woods after sending Valor off toward the portal. It had been a cruel trick, but he knew she wouldn’t have left without him.

  And now that he was here in Faery, he didn’t want to leave. Nor would he. This was his homeland. He belonged here.

  Whistling a few times did not summon Matilda to his side. The kestrel must have led Valor through
the portal and could not hear him from the mortal realm. Just as well.

  Maybe. Kelyn brushed his shoulder, wishing his sidekick were there, along with him. Matilda was his connection to...not home. This place was his real home. It had to be. He felt the call of its earth, sky and vital beings in his wings.

  And he could taste the awesome adventure waiting him on the air.

  Marching forward, he ventured deeper into the woods but found the brambles tugged at his ankles, so he lifted up a few feet to fly slowly between the trees. Man, it felt great to fly again! Black or otherwise, his wings were back. Sprites and birds littered the dark confines of the woods, and creatures with eyes of violet, gold and blue watched him from the inky shadows.

  Scents of musty rot, fruiting lushness and a liquid crispness combined in a heady perfume. His sensory skills had returned to their usual übersensitivity. Thank the gods for that. Now he could find his way with his eyes closed, or smell when predators approached before they got too near. He could even draw in Valor’s innate womanly perfume and get lost in it...

  No, he’d sent her away for her own good. She didn’t belong in Faery. And as much as he’d enjoyed her company these past days, she would only hold him back now. Because a witch in Faery? That couldn’t be good for the witch.

  He winced as his thoughts settled. She could never hold him back. But he didn’t want to acknowledge how much he’d like to have her along with him on this venture. He couldn’t. What had been done was done.

  Compelled, Kelyn followed a curiously exotic scent that curled into him and softened his determination. It coaxed with a hint of juicy citrus and led him onward with a hearty splash of warmth and suede. Spices he could not name alchemized with the earthy scents below his feet. He wanted to know the source of the perfume so desperately that his heartbeat sped up, as did his wings. He glided forward, deeper into the black woods.

  The sprites darting in and out of his path seemed to screech at him, but he couldn’t understand what they were trying to convey. If they were warning him back, he didn’t need a tiny creature telling him what to do. With a snap of his fingers, he sent one of the diminutive things reeling into the shadows.