Heir of Shadows (The Shadowborne Legacy Book 1)

by Emma Harley

  “You know what we are, and you know what I was like as a human. I took out three ships, with this team of humans. What do you think I can do to a S.W.A.T team now?”

  The threat sent a shudder throughout the room and Raina stood up. “I’m allowing you to live because I don’t plan on dying again tonight, but I assure you, if you cross me again, I will make death look like mercy.”

  Raina turned to her team, bearing expressions like pride on their faces.

  “We’re going to hide out upstairs until the ambush leaves. If he screws us, we’ll take out the entire squad,” she commanded. JJ helped Thea to her feet and guided her upstairs with Alicia’s help. Raina reluctantly turned to Logan.

  “You should probably hide before they see you.” She didn’t bother to wait for a response as she stalked out of the room, flanked by the rest of her team. Davin shoved his gun into the captain’s arms and jabbed a finger in his face.

  “One wrong move, and I’ll leave bits of your body over every continent on this planet,” he growled, storming off after Raina. Logan hoisted Elias to his feet and twisted around to Jonathon, who was now scrambling to his feet, leaning on his cane.

  “Don’t screw us over again.”

  The brothers darted up the steps and through the halls, catching up with Raina’s team as they slipped into her old bedroom. No one dared breathe too loudly as the sounds of crunching gravel and slamming doors echoed from outside. Raina could hear everything they said, much to her annoyance. Her new ears could hear the high-pitched whine of their radios, layered with the incessant buzzing of flies hanging around the irritatingly loud humming lights. She clasped her hands over her ears to drown out the noises.

  Kalen kept himself at the door with JJ, making sure no one could get in while Logan and Davin positioned themselves against a window, carefully checking outside.

  “They’ve got Coralynn’s body,” whispered Logan, “the captain is going along with our story. He said he took her down.”

  “Trucks are pulling out, looks like they’re done here,” Davin muttered glancing back to the group, “You alright Phoenix?”

  Logan spun to see her wincing, ripping out her earpiece and launching it across the room.

  “Just shut up,” she groaned, the noises pulsing painfully through her skull. He padded closer to her but stopped when Alicia shoved past him, tossing him a glare that promised death if he came any closer. She squatted in front of Raina, her stunning emerald eyes a picture of tranquillity against the turmoil in her mind.

  “They said you have like super bat-hearing now, is it true?” she whispered, so quietly the rest of the team couldn’t hear her. Raina nodded gently, her hands still clasped over her ears. Alicia tiptoed over to her discarded pack and pulled out her headphones, plugging the jack into her phone. She gently slid them over Raina’s ears and pressed play.

  “This is just nature sounds, on the lowest volume I can put it to. It should help with the headache for a while,” she muttered, climbing onto the bed beside her and deliberately putting herself in Logan’s view with a sarcastic smirk. Elias groaned as he stood up, wobbling slightly like a newborn fawn.

  “What the hell did she give me?” he growled, clutching his head in agony. The team and Logan shushed him, pointing at Raina in an unspoken reprimand. His eyes went wide as his hands flew to his pointed ears and he pulled his lips back to examine his lengthened canines.

  “I feel like someone should explain, ‘cause I’ve been out for a while and woke up as a Fae again,” he whispered. Raina ripped the headphones off and snarled at him.

  “I got shot in the neck, died, and was turned into a monstrosity like you. What else do you want to know?” Her raised voice had everyone except Logan and Davin backing away. Elias clenched his fist and creeped to the window.

  “Are they all gone?”

  Kalen hissed over to them, “someone’s in the hallway, but it’s only one person.”

  Raina’s team grabbed their weapons and slid into formation, shoving Kalen aside and ignoring the harsh snarl that ripped from his throat.

  “We’ll go check it out,” Davin ordered, “Raina stay here and don’t move until I tell you to.”

  They disappeared into the reception room and Raina listened carefully to their footsteps. The lock on her door clicked and the hinges creaked as it swung open and they flew into the hallway. A panicked yelp had Logan diving in front of Raina as Davin stormed into the room, followed by Izak and JJ trailing Jonathon in with them. They shoved him down on to her desk chair and backed away to guard Raina, eyeballing Logan as he took a step closer to her too.

  “We made a deal,” Kalen snarled, “Time for you to hold up your end.”

  The captain scanned around the room with a gulp. He was laden with deadly glares from an experienced team of elite soldiers, heavily armed, guarding their leader, and three fully grown Fae males from another world, guarding their princess. Thea was barely a threat, she was sitting silently on the bed, her breaths barely audible in a state of deep shock. He pulled a USB drive from inside his pocket and held it out.

  “This is everything Coralynn and Brent Ironwood had worked on. They learned how to open a portal through the rift, but it failed,” he turned to Raina, “I think she worked out how to fix it but she never told me how. It’s all I know, I swear.” Thea gulped, not breaking her stare from the bedcovers.

  “I know how to open it.”

  Raina shifted around to her aunt, who could barely look up at her. “Your mother… your birth mother, sent you here because your power was so deadly and unstable, you were a danger to yourself and everyone around you. The ritual was never supposed to work. She couldn’t risk you coming back to our world while you were so dangerous, so she built the portal with a fail-safe. But I don’t think she realised where she went wrong. The glamour to make you all human was tied to your power, so when Coralynn killed you, she thought your power would disappear and the spell would unravel without the binding point, but your blood is power itself,” she explained, Raina’s confused expression, spurring her on, “your grandfather’s bloodline was cursed to be unable to wield magic. So any spells using you are doomed to be unbalanced, like the glamour and the portal. Your mother used your blood to seal the portal, knowing that you would have to die for it to reopen.” Raina’s face fell.

  “So my birth mother doomed me to die so I couldn’t come back, and when I died, those guys would just turn into monsters and step through my blood portal? Then why did she give me this necklace to stop me from dying?” Thea shook her head.

  “That is Eliza’s. Your birth mother gave it to her to keep her safe, if anything ever happened then she would be able to come back home. Eliza gave it to you because she loved you as her own daughter, and couldn’t bear the thought of them” –she nodded to the Blanchards- “killing you just to return.” Logan snarled at Thea and crossed his arms.

  “We had never intended on killing her. Eliza ran into hiding because Coralynn discovered how to open a portal and hunted her for years. We were hunting Coralynn because she had gone rogue. Of course we wanted to find Raina, we were here to protect her. But yes, we wanted to go home, and wanted to find a way to do it. We didn’t know it could only be done by killing our princess,” he growled, and Kalen nodded.

  “When Raina told us her mother was dead, we didn’t even know it was Coralynn who killed her. We weren’t even sure if Raina was our princess when we first hired her until we tested her.”

  Raina shot up angrily and glared at him.

  “What do you mean you tested me?” Kalen put his palms up.

  “Nothing dangerous. Do you remember when I gave you tea the day you arrived? There’s some foods here we couldn’t eat because some of our Fae senses were still present. We could smell and see and taste a little bit better than humans, but it wasn’t much to brag about. Anyway we couldn’t stomach the taste of ginger root. Even the smell was repulsive, but it doesn’t bother humans. When we gave it to you, we noticed you f
ound it so bitter. That was our first clue. The second was your photo albums. We found pictures of you as a child and recognised you instantly, but by then you were gone, and Logan was so distraught, because he thought he could sense a mating bond on you.”

  Thea gasped, looking between Raina and Logan. Elias was dumbstruck, staring at his flushing brother.

  “A what?” Raina’s growl sent shivers down their spines. Kalen realised he had said too much when Logan’s furious warning snarl rippled through the room.

  “It’s not important, but what is important is that you died right? Your blood is all over the floor in the basement, we can use it for a portal,” he scrambled desperately to change the topic.

  Thea whimpered and pulled her necklace from under her blouse, a small glass sphere filled with something sparkling like glitter.

  “Raina.” She crossed around the room to sit by her aunt, who tucking the vial into her hand.

  “I promised Eliza if anything happened to you, I would give you this. When you were a child, she gave you a memory potion before you went into hiding, and passed it off as a horrible accident.”

  “The fall from the tree house didn’t happen?”

  Thea shook her head. “Your birth mother gave it to her. She was worried you might try to come looking for answers and finding a way back. Eliza didn’t want to give it to you, she wanted you to remember your family and everyone who loved you, until she found out you had to die for a portal to open. You loved these men when you were a child, but you couldn’t live in a world knowing you were a princess. Eliza gave you the potion when she made you run, she knew it would break your heart to lose everyone so soon after losing your parents and your home. This is the counter-spell.” Raina took the sphere and examined it carefully.

  “What am I supposed to do with it?” she asked quietly. Thea kissed her forehead and hugged her tightly.

  “You make a choice. Fae remember everything from their childhood as soon as they can open their eyes, you will remember everything the potion made you forget. Including your birth parents, and your world.” Raina threw the chain over her head and tucked the sphere between her breasts.

  “Not yet. I don’t consider them my parents, and since they have sent me to another world to save their own asses, I don’t think I want to remember them in a good light.” Thea just nodded, pushing a stray lock of hair out of her face.

  “I understand sweetheart. Eliza will always be your mother, she will always be my sister, and you my own child too.”

  “So are we going home?” Elias asked no one in particular. Raina ignored him, instead glancing at her team. Davin and JJ stood bolt upright, ready to attack at any moment. Nick and Alicia hadn’t taken their eyes off her since she sat down, and Izak was sprawled on the chair by her dressing table.

  “I’m not leaving my family,” she stated with a sharp intake of breath, “I don’t trust anyone other than my team. And I’d rather spend my life in this world on the run and hiding away, knowing they have my back means I’m safe here. And it’s not like I can bring them with me. So I’m not going anywhere.”

  Alicia frowned at her and stood up, coming to stand before her.

  “You need to think about this Phoenix. You’re like them now. You won’t age. What happens when we die? You can’t hide that you aren’t human, and we won’t be around long enough to protect you forever,” she blurted out, tapping Raina’s ears softly, “for all you know, you could end up safer in another world.”

  Kalen tried to back up Alicia’s point, “There are humans in our world, actually more of them than there are Fae. But you’ll be among your own kind, and no one is going to hunt you for it.” Raina’s eyes darted to Kalen as she scoffed.

  “My kind are humans, I lived and died as a human. I don’t care about being accepted among you brutes.” Alicia couldn’t hide her smirk as she sat beside her friend, tossing her auburn braid over her shoulder.

  “I’ll come with you.”

  “WHAT?” JJ screeched, dropping his stiff demeanour. Alicia turned to him.

  “I have nothing else here JJ. I faded out of foster homes and into the army. When I die, I’ll be in a solitary grave, and no one but the keepers will even pause at my headstone. That’s why we got put in this team. We might be talented, but we’re disposable. No families to miss us, no kids, no partners. We all know damn well if we failed a mission we were on our own in enemy territories, we only have each other.” JJ opened his mouth to retort, but Davin interrupted, slamming his headgear to the ground.

  “I can’t leave my sister behind,” he snapped, “If I disappear, they’ll pull the plug on her and she’ll die. I’m the only thing keeping her alive right now!” Alicia’s face softened as she looked up at him.

  “No Davin, the machines are keeping her alive right now, and have been for years. You won’t let go and accept she won’t wake up again. And I didn’t say any of you had to come along, I said I would go. It wasn’t an invitation.”

  Davin bit his tongue as his face turned red with anger, instead he stormed off to another corner of the room and leaned his head against the wall. JJ turned to Alicia and Raina.

  “I need time. This is probably a one way trip Alicia, I’m leaving everything behind,” he breathed heavily, “Phoenix, you’re like a sister to me, and you know I’d follow you to the ends of the earth. I just assumed it would be this earth.” Raina turned and looked at each member of her squad in turn.

  “I’m not asking any of you to come with me,” she started softly, “regardless of any promises we made to each other, this situation is way beyond anything we could have ever imagined happening. When I joined this team I didn’t think for a second we would be trying to find a way to hide the fact that I’m a damn alien in disguise. Crossing into another world through a magical blood portal where I’m some kind of witch princess is well beyond anyone’s job description.” Izak chuckled at her self-deprecating speech and swivelled his feet firmly onto the floor.

  “My job description is pretty vague. I mean, going from laundry grunt, to sniper and then to covert assassin is a pretty wide spectrum. Portal crossing doesn’t sound as scary as boarding an enemy ship with no preparation and six bullets left.”

  Nick nodded in agreement. “If things get rough, we can always find a way to make a portal back right?” he said inquisitively. Kalen put his hands up to interrupt them.

  “You realise we’re the queen’s guard, Raina will be fully protected in our world. You don’t have to come with her. Davin spun around furiously but Alicia got to Kalen before he did. She was almost a foot smaller than Raina’s Fae body and over two feet smaller than the muscled monster before her.

  “You did a damn good job of that didn’t you? You call her your princess, but you haven’t known her whereabouts for over a decade. We were the ones covering her ass and stopping her getting killed. You dicks come into the picture and your sister manages to kill her while you’re standing around like idiots," ”he hissed viciously. Kalen’s low growl was met by JJ raising his gun to him. Alicia ignored the animal grumble and didn’t break his stare, “you don’t get to protect her. You don’t even get to speak to her unless we say so. Your princess is officially under our protection, and if any of you even breathe wrong at my girl you’ll be in a fucking body bag beside your sister.”

  Raina’s chest swelled with pride. Every person she had trusted on this planet had betrayed and lied to her. But here Alicia was, as new to this supernatural existence as she was, squaring off against a veritable wall of pure death in the form of Fae males. They could probably have ripped her apart before JJ could fire a shot, but she had Raina’s back and wanted to prove it to everyone. Raina turned to Nick.

  “If I’m as powerful as they claim, I’ll make a portal to send you home should you ever ask. But this is a massive commitment you guys are making. I’m not going to ask any of you to come with me, I could never expect that of you,” she reiterated, purposely looking at Davin, “and I want each of you to kn
ow that I would never hold it against you for staying here.”

  Thea sniffed deeply.

  “I can’t leave here Raina,” she wept as Raina swivelled back to her, “I took my children here so they would be safe from the wars in our lands. They are human, but they have led happy lives here. We have nothing for us in our land, and I don’t want to take them from their lives.” Raina gripped her aunt’s hand, and couldn’t stop the tears escaping her eyes.

  “I wouldn’t ask you to do that. But I don’t look human anymore, and if they see me like this, it would ruin everything you’ve worked for,” she sniffed, clutching her hands gently, “You can’t come with me Thea. You deserve better than having everything torn from you, but I won’t be able to look after you anymore.” Thea chuckled through her sobs, and Raina felt the bed lighten as Alicia got up to give them some space. Raina’s eyes widened and she dived across the room to the boxes she had packed weeks before. She scrabbled through them, sliding out a plastic folder full of documents.

  “When I leave, we’ll fake my death,” she babbled, handing Thea the pages from inside, “You’re the beneficiary for my life insurance. You’ll get money from the army too, and all of my savings. There’s enough there to keep you comfortable for a long time.” Thea shook her head, flinging tears away.

  “No honey I can’t do that, keep your money,” she insisted, but Raina pushed the papers into her hands.

  “It’s no use to me where I’m going,” she stalked over to the captain, who was huffing silently in his chair, “you betrayed me. Now you’re going to make it right. You’re going to fake my death. I don’t care how you do it, but you make sure my family is kept comfortable.” She squatted down before him. “And before you even think about messing me around again, if you don’t do it, I’ll take you with me through the portal, and let you wander that world alone.”

  Jonathon didn’t even whimper as he looked in her eyes. “I’ll pretend I sent you on a mission. She was right,” he mumbled, pointing at Alicia, “If your team disappears on a mission, you’re expendable. The government will just declare you dead and not bother with a rescue.” Alicia rolled her eyes as he confirmed her earlier statement.