Fever Fae

by Meg Xuemei X

  Baron swiveled his glare and punched the rogue Fae in his teeth.

  The drunk clapped a hand to his bleeding nose, rage in his eyes as he wheeled to his attacker. When he saw who had punched him, he fled.

  If the rogue was stupid enough to contest, Baron or Rowan would have gutted him right there. The magical world was like the Wild West.

  “You guys need to leave now, seriously,” I growled at Rowan and Baron. “You won’t get me fired. I warn you.”

  Indira dragged my sleeve and pulled me aside while K came over to check out the situation.

  She whispered into my ear, her hand covering the corner of her mouth to prevent her voice from spreading, “You can’t talk to them like that, Evie. They’re the true Seelie kings. They can break your neck like a twig with a thought. I’ll educate you on what the Seelie and Unseelie courts are like when we’re safe, but for now, stay low and keep your mouth shut.”

  “I’m going to kill Rydstrom,” Rowan proclaimed, standing so still I almost thought he was an ice statue. Yet, lethal power rolled off him in spades. “He took what belongs to me. After I kill him, I’ll take back what’s mine.”

  “Let’s tear down his despicable establishment first,” Baron said viciously.

  A group of Night knights filed in, surrounding Baron and Rowan. Everyone drew their blades, including K.

  The kings from the Summer and Winter courts sneered, their powers rippling in the air, and they eased their longswords from behind their backs.

  “Let’s kill them all, Summer King,” Rowan said, puffing out fogged breaths.

  “Stop!” I shouted, leaping over the long bar to block the kings and knights from advancing on each other. I wouldn’t allow them to use me as an excuse to start a war here. I faced Baron and Rowan. “I want you to leave. If you have issues with me, you can take it up with me outside the club after my shift is over.”

  “I’ll never harm you, Evie,” Rowan said, frowning at me, anger beating in him. “You know that.”

  “I don’t know anything anymore!” I said. “You keep making my life difficult.”

  “I was trying to protect you as I vowed to do,” Rowan protested.

  “You need to learn to have faith in me, Evie,” Baron said. “I’ll take care of this, and that fucking asshole will never come near you again.”

  They couldn’t be reasoned with while white-hot rage rode them, even though they were trying to be patient with me as the tension kept rising in the room.

  They wouldn’t leave until they bled Rydstrom.

  “Please, Rowan, Baron, just leave,” I said. “We can talk this out when I get home. I’ll even make spaghetti for you tonight if you leave now.”

  “You heard the lady,” Rydstrom said coldly, his voice like a sharp blade striking from above. He’d come out to the balcony and glared down at the other kings. “She asked you to leave, so leave, or I’ll make you. And Evelina, you don’t need to cook anything for them.”

  I glared at him. He was no less arrogant than the other kings.

  The Night King leapt from the balcony and landed with the lethal grace of a panther before Baron and Rowan, and now the two brothers, Rydstrom, and I formed a triangle.

  “Summer King and Winter King,” Rydstrom pronounced. “You aren’t welcome in my domain.”

  “When did you expand your Night Court to the mortal realm?” Rowan retorted. “Next you’d claim the entire Earth as yours. Is that your ambition or idiocy?”

  “That’s not the point, Winter King,” Baron snapped. “Focus. We came to take back what’s ours. After we combine our forces and erase him, we’ll level this place and take Evie home.”

  Rydstrom darted a glance at me, and I growled at him for what he had done to me last night. He didn’t seem offended. Instead, a wicked delight sparked in his sapphire eyes.

  “Hello, Evelina. I missed you,” he purred, just to anger his rivals more.

  “You’ll pay with your life for marking what’s mine, asshole,” Rowan said icily, raising his blade to charge the Night King.

  “Wait a second!” I shouted. “I’m no one’s. I belong to myself, and my loyalty is strictly to my family! And you know what? It’s only going to get worse and messy with all three of you. My life was so nice and simple before I met you.” Which wasn’t exactly true. My life had gone downhill the day my parents had disappeared without a trace. “So, I quit,” I yelled more. “I’m done with all of you and I mean it! Indira, please pour me the strongest drink. After that, I’m getting the hell out of here.”

  “You can’t quit, Evelina,” Rydstrom said silkily. “We have a magical contract. I haven’t resolved you.”

  “We are not done, Evie, far from it,” Rowan said, looking furious and devastated, and his eyes burned with icy fire. “You’re mine and no one else’s.”

  “Calm, Evie,” Baron said. “Go take a break and sit tight over there. I’ll kill the Night King, resolve any contract you have with him, and scratch his stinky mark off you.”

  My face burned with fury. Hardass Fae didn’t know when to quit. “This—this—” I was too mad to string words together.

  A strong wind of three sources—winter, summer, and night—lifted me and transported me out of the combat range.

  Then Baron’s sunbeam blasted toward Rydstrom. The room brightened as if a small sun had dropped in the club. The vampires screamed. The shifters howled. And everyone else groaned in pain and shielded their eyes, including Indira. I was the only one immune to the Summer King’s sun power, even though the brightness was a bit too much for my taste.

  Shadows surged out of Rydstrom like a dark flood and met Baron’s sunbeam, dimming the room an instant later. Taking advantage of that, patrons fled toward the entrance or the back exit.

  Rowan bellowed as he flung a current of ice spears toward Rydstrom, intending to punch as many holes as possible in his foe, and Rydstrom’s starlight lashed out.

  Their magics locked in a death duel. Where their powers collided, a terrible vortex formed and started expanding, wild wind whipping around the club as it grew.

  “Get out of here, Evie,” the three kings called.

  The ground shook. Glasses behind the bar cracked and shattered, the sharp pieces flying. Steel beams in the walls and ceilings bent toward the vortex. The Fae trio were going to collapse the building along with everyone who hadn’t escaped, including Indira. I dashed toward the bar to shield her.

  Before I could get to her, three kinds of magics wrapped around me, shielding me from the flying glass shards and the raw power surging in the air. After securing me, the kings trained their attention on each other again, their power tearing into each other.

  If this feud didn’t end now, one or all of them would die.

  Fear hammered in me, ice filling my blood. As much as they frustrated me, I couldn’t bear to lose any of them. I wouldn’t allow it!

  There was only one way to stop the duel—getting between them. They wouldn’t harm me. They got into this stupid fight because of me. I knew that I was probably in way over my head, but I had no choice. The ruthless Fae kings had lost all reason in their fit of jealous rage. I had to gamble that their magics wouldn’t destroy me before they destroyed everything.

  I roared and, like a flash, I dashed into the expanding vortex that was now bigger than a truck.

  “Don’t, Evelina!” Rydstrom shouted, trying to withdraw his shadow power and starlight. “Stay away!”

  “No, Evie!” Terror filled Rowan’s voice. “You’ll get hurt!”

  “What have you done, Evie?” Baron also tried to leash his power.

  But it was too late for them to rein in their massive powers. The vortex had become self-sustaining, and I stood in its eye.

  A battle call beat in my bloodstream, a new power in me rose from a long slumber, and it wasn’t the shadow fire. My shadow fire had no use in this conflict. A whorl of vines shot out of me, holding onto the vortex of starlight, fire, and ice. And then the three Fae kings sp
un around me, not by their choice. I was now a magnet to them and their vortex.

  Light, wind, and shadow twirled around us, engulfing us. Pain lanced through me. The Fae kings stretched their hands, roaring, unable to reach me.

  They couldn’t shield me, not from this. Tears blinded my vision as agony threatened to shatter me, the pain not from the vortex, but from my effort of taking it with me.

  I screamed. The dizzying, painful whirling intensified. My vines vanished, unable to hold the vortex any longer.

  But then, luckily, the screaming vortex was gone.

  We fell in a vast meadow. I stumbled at my clumsy landing, dumbfounded at what I had just done. But at least I stopped the death duel between the Fae kings.

  A force called me like a burning song in my blood, and I wheeled to face a vertical flame that extended from the heaven to earth.

  I knew exactly what it was—the Veil.

  Chapter 26

  “How did you shift us here, Evie?”

  Rode on your battling vortex, obviously. I rolled my eyes at Baron’s question, though none of them saw it since they were behind me.

  “It’s not possible,” Rowan breathed. “How could you find the Veil, Evie? It’s hidden and closed to all except the most powerful Fae.”

  Rydstrom was the only one who hadn’t demanded an answer.

  I ignored them, still irritated and drained from the vine magic I’d wielded, and staggered toward the Veil like a moth to the flame.

  “Don’t go to it, Evie.” Rowan slipped his arm around my waist to stop my advance. “It’s too dangerous. If you don’t have enough power to cross it, the flame will consume you.”

  “She won’t cross. Let her go, Winter King,” Rydstrom warned. He appeared on my other side the next second. It seemed he wanted to hold me instead. Starlight hissed in his palms.

  “Stop it!” I snapped. “You won’t fight again and put me in danger here.” I shook my head in disgust, not caring one bit about the shame swirling in their eyes. I shook off Rowan’s arm, just in case they got into a battle over me again.

  These Fae were as unpredictable as a ticking bomb.

  The Veil stole my attention again, the song of flame and frost, midnight and dawn beating harder and harder in my veins. I involuntarily stretched my hands toward it, answering with a silent song of my own—a lullaby from genetic memory.

  The thin line of flame expanded to two columns of fire, and they kept opening for me until the gap was wide enough for four people to walk through.

  I peeked inside. A brilliant splash of colors rushed to my face, and ancient magic like finest, aged wine whiffed out of the opening, rolling off my skin like silky, cool liquid.

  It felt good. It felt right.

  “The sealed section of Elfame,” Rowan murmured beside me.

  So this was the fairyland, home of the Fae and the courts of the three kings with me.

  Shafts of sunlight, more vibrant and nourishing than sunbeams in the mortal realm, streamed across the evergreen grassland. Flowers bloomed and shivered, and colorful vines extended to the opening in the Veil, enticing me in. Under the shining, blue sky, tiny winged pixies chased golden fairy dust. A distant flute melody vibrated in the clear, clean air.

  That world was real, and it was the most lovely, enchanting realm I’d seen.

  “Don’t go in yet, Evelina.” Rydstrom darted between me and the Veil. “It’s not what it appears to you. In Elfame, you’ll need my guidance to wade through the perilous landscape and avoid all monstrous things and traps.”

  Baron snorted. “Speaking of which, your court is filled with those.”

  “How did you know where the Veil is, Evie?” Rowan asked, sounding amazed and worried at the same time. “How could you get it to open like that? No one can manipulate the portal unless—” He swallowed hard and didn’t spell out the rest of the words.

  Three pairs of bedroom eyes stared at me intently.

  “It was by accident,” I said a bit sheepishly, now that I calmed down enough to realize that this power play was way over my head. “Accidents always happen around me, ever since I was a toddler. I didn’t want the three of you to fight, and I didn’t want anyone getting hurt in the Claws. I have a friend there now. Then I remembered that Rowan mentioned my parents might be on the other side of the Veil. I wanted to find them more than anything. Also, I figured your crazy cyclone would cause great damage in any human city, so the best way to avoid a disaster was to bring it and all of you to the Veil. If your vortex blew it away, all the better, since there’d be no barrier stopping me from reaching my parents.”

  The Fae kings were silent for a second, their faces grim, as if I’d done the formidable.

  “You wouldn’t want the Veil to be torn down and open, Evie, if you know the consequences,” Rowan said. “The Veil has been up and unbreakable for eons for a reason, and because all the courts are making sure of it, even the Unseelie court. Only one species would benefit from the tearing of the Veil—the demons. If the Veil was gone, Fae would war with humans. It would be a bloodbath. Lucifer and his Hell force would cross over and take over Earth.”

  I put a hand on his arm to stop the doom and gloom speech. “Slow down, dude,” I said. “Let’s not get carried away with this immortal invasion and Hell on Earth conspiracy—”

  The stench of sulfur, rotten corpses, and foul magic hit my nose before I could finish. Then inky darkness loomed across the fairyland on the other side of the Veil. The pixies had disappeared, and the landscape of blossoms had shifted to ragged black mountains that spewed dark red lavas and noxious smoke.

  My eyes widened, and cold fear squeezed my heart.

  “Close the Veil, Evie!” Rydstrom roared.

  “I don’t know how!” I yelled pathetically, but I threw up my hand toward the Veil and barked. “Close. Close now. Just fucking close!”

  The space between the two columns of flame only expanded, as if the Veil needed me to go in, and only then would it close.

  But I wasn’t that dumb. If I stepped in, I might not find a way back. And then who was going to take care of my siblings?

  “Close!” I shouted again, slamming my palms together to show the Veil how to close.

  It wouldn’t budge. Instead, a small army of monsters, all eight feet tall with fangs and claws and glowing red eyes, poured out from the other side of the Veil. Freakishly, the nightmare creature that had attacked me in my dining room was in their rank.

  The demonca locked its eerie, hateful gaze on me and flashed a lewd grin. “Princess. Meat.”

  “Filthy demons,” Rydstrom hissed, drawing his sword.

  “Protect Evie!” Rowan shouted, ice magic twirling around him and dropping the temperature around us.

  “Get behind us, Evie!” Baron shouted.

  “Run!” I cried out and bolted across the meadow.

  I’d never been so afraid and I didn’t know why. Pure primal terror flooded me with adrenaline, as if the demons could deposit absolute panic directly into my mind. Horrific images of torture and death battered my mind as I ran. Those demons wanted to tear me open with their fangs and eat my liver while I was still alive.

  I couldn’t let myself suffer that fate, not only for me but for my family. I was the last line of defense my siblings had. I wouldn’t abandon them to be orphans.

  The crashing of steel and the sickening sound of claws tearing into flesh rose behind me, nearly drowned out by my rushing heartbeat and labored breathing. I ran out of the meadow, sprang up a narrow trail, and darted into a courtyard surrounded by Victorian-style brick buildings. I blinked at the abrupt change of scenery. It was as if I’d come to a London market, only this place felt like a supernatural London market.

  I panted hard, my mind still reeling in icy fear and confusion. I didn’t hear the brutal battle sounds from here now, yet I didn’t feel safe. Instead, shame washed over me.

  I had run away like a coward.

  When the demonca appeared in my dining room
, I had faced it. When the assassins pursued me, I’d fought back. But when a horde of demons poured out of the Veil, I’d left the Fae kings behind. All of them had protected and helped me. Where was my honor? My loyalty?

  I might not be much, but I was still my parents’ daughter. They’d taught me better.

  I had to go back and help them. I had to close the Veil.

  What Rowan had said about the demon invasion proved to be not farfetched at all. If I didn’t find a way to close the gap in the Veil, more demons would flood into the human world, and innocent lives would be lost, my family included. If the entire demon horde fell upon Earth, the disaster would be unimaginable.

  Baron, Rowan, and Rydstrom must have known that, so they’d stood their ground to fight. They were better males than I’d thought.

  I squinted my eyes and commanded, Take me back to the Veil.

  I’d done it once—dragging all three powerful Fae to the Veil with me. I could do it again, especially now that I felt such a strong connection to it.

  Vertigo hit me and then eased. I landed perfectly this time. Instantly, battle roars, screams of pain, and clashing steel assaulted my hearing. I flashed open my eyes, pulled the dagger from my boot—I’d almost lost it in the woods fighting the assassins—and threw it into the eye of a one-horned demon that snuck up on Baron from his blind side.

  When another green-skinned demon swatted his blade-like claws at me, I dove, rolled on the ground, and yanked a wicked-looking dagger from a demon corpse. I slashed the blade across his claws before they bore down on my face.

  Nasty things!

  The demon dagger was too heavy for my taste. I weighed it in my hands, debating if I should keep it. I might stumble under its weight in a fight and cut my own toes.

  “What are you doing here, Eve!” Rydstrom barked furiously as he pierced his blade through a demon’s throat and fought toward me. “I asked you to hide in a safe place.”

  “My days of hiding are over,” I said. I knew clearly now there was no safe place for me to hide, so why not take the fight to my enemies? “Can’t let you boys have all the fun.”