Up close, her eyes had specks of gold and tan in them, looking nearly like the Caribbean Sea kissing the sand.
He stroked away her tears with his thumb. “Talk to me.”
Her white teeth worried her full bottom lip, and he worked to keep his cock down. She needed his support, not him dry humping her like some dog on a pillow.
“I do not want to go back there.”
“Then we won’t. We don’t even have to talk about it.”
For now. Eventually, he’d want to know what made her so afraid, but he wanted her happy instead.
“Who are you, Foraltae?”
“I am called …” She shook her head, letting her voice trail off. “It does not matter.”
“It does to me.”
She ran her hands over the plane of his stomach. “You are real.”
Yup. Real hard. Heath groaned and then cleared his throat. “Yes.”
She released him as if her were hot and stumbled away. The loss of her heat sent a ripple of longing through him.
“This is impossible. I have been in the Tower for so many years.”
Heath felt like he’d missed something. “The Tower?”
He wanted her back in his arms. He wanted the fear and pain in her eyes to disappear. Everything about this woman cried for him to protect, seduce, and entrench until they were inseparable.
“The Forgotten Tower. It is where What May Be is seen.”
Yeah, like that makes sense. Like, at all.
“Okay, we need to try this shit again.”
Her brow furrowed. “Why would we try to shite? That is disgusting.”
Um. “Not actually … Look, it’s a saying.”
“You are Fae, yes? From Seraph?”
He shook his head. “Half right. I am Fae, but I’m from Daemon originally.” Heath wouldn’t be able to hide what he was. The eyes alone would make sure of that, and he’d recognized her as Seelie the moment he saw her. Daemon was the homeland of the Unseelie, and no Seelie were born there.
“What is the Forgotten Tower?”
“Where What May Be is seen.”
Okay, this was getting them nowhere. “Why are you there?”
“Because I am trapped, held hostage by the owner.”
His fangs exploded from his mouth, and he gritted his teeth to keep himself from grabbing the nearest weapon and storming off.
“You’re standing in front of me.”
She shook her head. “But I am not here. This is a dream, one I wish I did not have to wake up from.”
A dream. Heath looked around again and noticed the edges were frayed, as if only so much had been colored in. The black grass, purple/blue sky, and brilliant yellow sun faded to gray on the edges.
He was still in the In Between.
“Okay, who has you there, and why?”
“Skuld, the Norn of What May Be.”
There was that turn of phrase again. What May Be. He rubbed his chin. “The future.”
She nodded. “As I said.”
Not exactly, but he was getting the gist. “So the Norn … wait, the Norns?”
His people knew of the Norns, of course. They’d gone by many names—Fates, Moirai, The Threads—but their jobs were always the same, and they came in threes. Past, Present, and Future. Each of them saw their scope of the world with all-seeing knowledge. They were goddesses, for lack of a better word, not living beings who walked the earth. They never had, as far as anyone had knowledge of.
What his Foraltae spoke of was impossible.
But he was here, and she stood before him in a dream. Was he up against the Norns to save his Fate?
“The Future Norn holds you?”
“Aye.”
“Why?”
She shook her head. “I cannot speak of it.”
“Can’t, or won’t?”
“They are one and the same. To speak is to have thoughts. To have thoughts is to make action. She can see action.”
It was like talking to a walking riddle. Heath sighed. “Tell me your name.”
“They called me Ash at one time.”
Ash. It didn’t fit her. She wasn’t burned cinders after having lost all their color. She was vibrant, full of light and life. But he bit his tongue from digging further. First, he had to focus on how to get her to his side.
“I am Heath.”
“Heath? That is not a Fae name.”
No, but then he didn’t want to be tied to who he was before. Maybe they both wanted to separate themselves from what was before. He couldn’t fault her there.
“It is still my name.”
He laughed at himself. Without realizing it, he’d switched to her formal way of speaking. It was only then he realized she was speaking High Eldalisfae, the language of his kind. He’d been responding in English, but she seemed to understand.
A sudden wrenching of his soul took Heath’s breath away. “Shit.”
“It is harder to maintain this form. I have to go.”
“Wait. Tell me how to get you out.”
Ash closed her eyes. “I dare not hope, but you are here. This is all I can offer, and even this may doom us both. Find your way to the Forgotten Tower. I am there. But beware, Foraltin, there are many dangers that lie in wait. She does not want anyone to ruin her plans. I dare not even say her name.”
The Forgotten Tower was the information that mattered to him most of all. “I will find you. I swear it on my life.”
Ash took one hesitant step forward and lifted her hand toward Heath. When her small, heated palm touched his chest, directly over his heart, he sucked in a breath.
“You are but a dream, but I thank the gods I was blessed to have seen you. I have never known any man could be as heartbreaking to set eyes upon as you.”
“Heartbreaking?”
“Because even when you find me, taking me will be impossible. But here, in these moment, I will enjoy wishing you were mine.”
Ash was gone before he could say a single word, and he woke up, gasping for breath.
It didn’t matter what she believed. Heath would find her and free her.
The dreams would only make it so he could know her before the time came, if he were so lucky to have another.
I swear it, Ash.
Chapter Six
Waking hours weren’t as happy as he wanted.
He longed to be back in his dreams with Ash, watching the play of the sun over her skin. Going back and forth from that brilliant color to the drabness of the In Between was mind-boggling. He kept blinking, hoping some speck of color would leak in eventually. He knew Eiravel’s armor normally glistened dark red like freshly spilled blood, but it appeared a deep charcoal now.
Heath only focused on the plan. Until Cynes returned with his stone of the map, they wouldn’t want to leave the area, no matter how much he’d like to race forward. His soul still pulled him forward, though, urging him with ever-increasing need to get to Ash.
Having a Foraltae was a new experience. There wasn’t a sense of instant love, and had there been, he quite honestly wouldn’t have been able to trust it. But he got a feeling of oneness. He just wasn’t alone anymore. Ash was there, the perfect person built to understand, accept, and walk through life with him. It didn’t mean things couldn’t get rough. Hell, he didn’t know how he’d tell her what had brought him to the In Between in the first place, but at least he had a chance to try.
The issue with her unnamed assailant rankled. Ash had only told him it was the Future Norn. It wasn’t much information to go on. The stories he’d heard about the Norns were few and far in between.
They were always female, controlled the fate of mortals by choosing their destiny upon birth, and they could be petitioned to change one’s fate. Of course, he’d never see the truth of those statements and just had experience with the beliefs.
If Ash were to be believed, they were real.
“Eiravel, what do you know of the Norns?”
Eiravel, leaning against the
base of the tree as he sat on the ground, slid his blade over a whetstone. “About fuckall. They were an ancient relic more important during the time of the Beginning when war was high between the Seelie and the Unseelie. Once the two had found some measure of peace, there was no need for them.”
Eiravel spat the word “peace” like it was a curse. Heath couldn’t blame him. The Unseelie and Seelie officially hadn’t been at war with each other in a millennium, but it didn’t stop them from hurting each other in other ways.
Or so he thought.
Heath sighed, frustrated again with the unsure nature of his memories. “You do remember criminals were transported to the opposite faction to serve their time, right? I didn’t just fucking make that shit up?”
Eiravel shook head, still sharpening his blade in smooth, easy strokes. “No. I was branded a murderer. Killed my father, they said. The sentence for patricide was death, but it was commuted to a life of servitude the moment my bastard of an owner took one look at my eyes. Wanted a fighter under his wings. Made enough in the Pits.”
Yeah, that had scarred Eiravel more than anything else. Heath had only seen them once, but from his neck to the tops of his feet, Eiravel was covered in scars ranging from slivers of white skin to taut bunches. The masters didn’t like the pretty faces of their slaves marred, and it was bad for the public image.
No one wanted to admit they used criminals for sport.
Except … not all of them were criminals.
“You didn’t kill your father.”
“Tell that to them, Heath. My father died because he refused to let me be drafted into the Escala. Simple as that. They wanted me, and he stood in their way.”
The Escala were the elite fighting force of the Unseelie. They took men just before they reached their maturity and put them grueling training until they were nothing better than mindless war machines. It was considered an honor to be one, and they were released from duty upon death. Having an Escala in one’s family elevated them from a lower caste instantly and was highly sought after. Eiravel’s battle skill made him a coveted prize.
“Why did he say no? It would have made him rich.”
Eiravel sighed and switched to his other blade. “I am not my father’s eldest son.”
Well, shit. That was news to Heath. He thought Eiravel and Cynes were the only two children, twins of a Fated Pair. It would cause problems if they were ever to pair themselves.
Cynes and Eiravel shared their half of soul. Their Fate would have to accept both of them.
“What happened then?”
“There were two others, older, twins like us. It ran in my mother’s bloodline. Just like Cynes and me, they were battle and metal, two halves of a whole. You see, every battle-powered Fae needs weapons.”
“And the metal worker could provide the best, enchanted with magic stones.”
Eiravel nodded. “In every sense of the word, a match made in heaven. It would have only been better with a Fated Pair to strengthen their power. My brothers were foolhardy, loud, and rambunctious. When they were summoned to the Escala, they took to it like their due. Until … one died. The other went berserk on the field and killed anything within sight. They had to take him down as well. My father lost his sons at one time and never wanted to have more.”
“They died before you were born.”
Again, Eiravel nodded, tucking his blades carefully in their sheaths and wrapping his whetstone. “He never even told us their names, but we knew what happened to them. Why he mourned when my mother had us. The Escala came knocking once more, as he’d expected. This time, he said no. They killed him, and Cynes and I killed them. What would it do to their reputation? Two untried youths having killed a cadre of theirs. We couldn’t be brought into their fold, so they had to destroy us.”
For a Fae, murdering one’s parents or children was the gravest sin. They would have been placed with the harshest owners, pushed to suffer every day. This could not all be a lie.
“I don’t think all our memories are wrong, Heath. I don’t. I know the pain that sliced through my heart when my father was taken from me before my eyes. I remember how my mother’s blood stained the stone floor and her eyes went completely black. I can’t sleep without seeing it.”
Fuck.
“But I believe someone manipulated us thereafter. Somehow, when we became slaves and took the brand, things changed.”
The mark of Sorlisalvalkeld made the serving Fae unable to raise a hand to their master and bendable to their will even if they fought against it in their mind. It was a plausible explanation, one Heath had thought of as well.
“Then if we were lied to after we were taken, it’s our lives among the Seraph we have to worry about. And we also need to learn who did it and why it was done. There is no reason for us to have been made to believe Silva ordered our harsh treatments and broke us down. What could anyone gain?”
“The death of a queen.”
“Assassination? I found her in Encantado after she’d been there for a few years, from what I could gather. She was powerless, working at Kalinda’s Katering. But even then, I didn’t know she was Fae until she nearly died in an attack. Suddenly, she was on my radar.”
“Perhaps she was in hiding.”
Heath shook his head. “She’s Kalinda’s Cosantiór, Eiravel. When Kalinda was in danger, she wouldn’t have been able to let her be harmed.”
“Then someone has impersonated her.”
They were going around in circles. “The royal seal is tied to her blood and magic. It was designed that way so no one could mimic it.”
“You do not remember your past.”
Heath spun and slid his sword from his sheath before he registered the ghostly apparition before him.
Ash.
Eiravel leapt to his feet, fangs big in his mouth, daggers at the ready. “What?”
“It’s her.”
“Your Foraltae?”
“Yes. Ash, can you make yourself visible to him?”
She closed her eyes for a minute, and her form became more solid than before.
Eiravel gasped. “It’s not clear, but I see a silhouette of someone standing there.”
“It drains too much of my energy to maintain it.”
“Gods tit, I heard her. It’s like the ocean.”
Heath hissed. “Don’t sound too fucking excited.”
With a chuckle, Eiravel tucked away his blades. “Not even close, brother. She is yours.”
Of course, she was.
“Fade back to where it’s easier, if you need to.”
Ash did so with a blink. “You said you do not remember your past right.”
Heath wasn’t sure how to explain it, so he started from his time in Encantado up until he’d left the Lombardi Pack to find the truth and joined with Eiravel, Cynes, Kallan, and Teague. His heart twinged a bit when he left out Silva and her part in the story. Ash was Seelie, and he didn’t want her to know what he’d attempted to do to her former monarch.
It wouldn’t bode well for their developing relations.
“Hmmm, I wonder.” Ash’s brow pinched as she tapped her lip in thought.
Even now, she was beautiful to behold. A petite but curvy woman who made his blood boil with need. And the fact she seemed completely unaware of how beautiful she was only made it better.
“I can control the dream locations. I wonder if through our Fate bond I may be able to pull up the memories you have and play them true.”
That didn’t even sound possible.
“If you play my memories, you will only see what I remember.” And again, he didn’t want her to see him nearly put an innocent Silva and Kalinda to death because of his need for revenge.
“We can try. Sometimes, magic can sense others, and I have been permeated with the power of the What May Be. There could be some link I may find. The Norns see all times as wide-open parallels.”
He wasn’t sure he wanted to believe her words.
Eiravel nudged Hea
th with his elbow. “What’s she saying?”
“She may have a way to help show the memories. If nothing else, be able to set a different set of eyes on them.”
“Then we do what we can. Cynes isn’t back yet, which means he’s taking his time marking the plot to help us go forward. We may still have some time.”
Heath looked to Ash. “What do I need to do?”
“Sleep.”
Heath skipped over the tops of slanted roofs with an ease born of years of practice. Each landing was soft, producing as little sound as possible. It was the difference between helping the others eat or not. They depended on him and what he could teach them to survive.
Living in Daemon as one of the many orphans from criminal exile was hard.
Heath’s parents had been taken when he was fifteen years old because they’d taken food from a stall to feed the family. The disparity between the poor and the rich was massive, but he was working to change that.
Another leap took him to the outskirts of the market. The trick to being a thief, and a good one, was to live in the spaces people ignored. Very few looked up for danger, and he could remain there and watch the vendors push their wares. He could see who left things in mini storehouses, who guarded their wares zealously, and who catered to the nobility.
He targeted them the most.
They wasted more than they could use and didn’t care about those living in the slums just steps away from their precious grand estates.
“I caught up to you.”
Heath smiled as Lorack settled on his haunches next to him. Heath never doubted he would follow him when he went out to scout for food. The young man, just twenty-five years old, already showed great promise. If anyone could watch over the orphans when Heath wasn’t around, it was him.
“Have you spotted your mark?”
Lorack grinned, a dimple appearing in his right cheek, and flipped his flame-red hair over his shoulders. “My favorite.”
Heath didn’t have to guess. The orange in Lorack’s eyes signaled his affinity for fire, something he’d helped Heath mirror with his shadow skill. Lorack would be targeting the smokers’ shacks, where they stored and preserved meat.
With his talent, Lorack could stoke the fires to create larger clouds of black smoke to obscure him going in and stealing a feast worthy of many meals.
Fated to the Traitor (Portal City Protectors Book 4) Page 5