Prince of Dreams

by Pippa Dacosta

  Heaving, I spewed more tek worms and wished they had killed me instead of pouring those fuckers into my veins. I spat aside and wiped my mouth dry. Hopefully, those were all the bots. The madness was passing, though the hunger wouldn’t until I’d dealt with it, but I could manage it without those tek parasites in me.

  Pierce stared, panting like a frightened rabbit.

  I grinned back at her. “Monster enough for you?!”

  Someone lurked in the corner of my eye, smelling of tek and syringes. “If you so much as look at me with a syringe in your hand, I’ll take that needle and pump that shit into your veins. Seeing as nobody here is vakaru and can’t expel poisons the way I can, you’ll die in seconds.”

  “Ma’am?”

  “It’s all right.” She rubbed at the red blotches on her neck. “Don’t hurt him and he won’t retaliate. Will you, Marshal?”

  I wasn’t so sure, but I’d go with her assessment for now. “Like I said before you tortured me, I’m not your enemy.”

  This time, the look in her eyes said she might just believe it.

  Chapter 19

  Marshal Kellee

  * * *

  “I can’t believe I’m doing this.” Pierce swirled the wine in her glass.

  “Neither can I.” We were back on Excalibur, but this time, the crew was firmly under her command and I was a reluctant guest. To make the situation even more interesting, Pierce had invited me to dine with her. A gesture of goodwill, she had explained. If it hadn’t been for the distinct lack of an irritating fae prince, I might have assumed I was dreaming.

  Her quarters were clean and comfortable. No ridiculous silk curtains that served no purpose. Just a neat couch, sculpted steel table, and a window with a fine view of Earth’s green and blue marble.

  “We picked up your companions in the forest.”

  Ah. Talen and Hulia were in her custody. Then what was this little meet cute about?

  I downed my wine without coming up for air and poured myself a second or third. I’d lost count, but we’d drained the first bottle and were on the second. It took a lot more than grape wine to intoxicate me, but she didn’t know that. We could all play at being friends here. “As prisoners?”

  “No, as… leverage.”

  At least she was honest. “Piss off the fae and he’ll have you all on your knees again.”

  Her eyes flashed. “I realize that. I mentioned you were with me and he’s been behaving.”

  Talen would be itching to have her on her knees again. She was rolling the dice and getting that he wouldn’t risk hurting her until he saw I was alive. “Do you have them locked up?”

  She sipped her wine and rolled her lips together. “No, but keep that between you and me. My orders were to lock him behind six feet of tek-reinforced shielding.”

  I could imagine Talen rattling around a little Earthen cabin, counting the seconds until he went full Nightshade on their asses.

  “So, what is this?” I gestured at our empty plates. “First you torture me and now you’re, what…?” I leaned in, resting a forearm on the table and adopted a coy expression. “Trying to placate me with steak and wine?”

  Her smile implied she would play along. “You said we could help each other. I’m listening. But you first have to tell me why you came here, and don’t bullshit me, Marshal. I might be inclined to believe you’re on our side, but that could change.”

  “I’m trying to stop a war. If that means our motives are aligned, then so be it, but let’s not get carried away. I’m not on your side. Sol abandoned Halow. You lost me the battle on Hapters. You injected tek-bots into my veins. My opinion of you hasn’t improved.”

  Her eyebrows lifted. “And don’t think for one second I’ve forgotten the butcher you are beneath all that…” The right word eluding her, she swept a hand in my direction.

  “Handsome exterior?” I offered.

  “I was going to say fake humanity.”

  “Call me human again and our truce ends here.”

  She laughed. “All right, all right… Look, I asked my superiors to let me talk with you, like this, in normal surroundings, so we might find some common ground and build bridges. You say the fae are at our back door, and I’m not entirely convinced our tek can hold them back. I’ve seen what’s left of Halow. Our tek is based on the same systems. We just have more of it. I saw Halow’s ruined settlements and broken space stations. I’ve seen what my superiors haven’t. Maybe the new net will be enough, but I’d rather be prepared.”

  “The net won’t be enough.”

  She tilted her glass. “You can help with that. You know how Halow fell, and you can help us prepare.”

  “Assuming I want to after you tortured me.”

  “You do. You’re a good man now, right?”

  My smile cracked. “Some days.”

  “You help us, and I’ll help you.”

  “Not the rest of the Sol Alliance? Just you?”

  “As you can imagine, setting you free has cost me good standing. My crew and I are the best you’ll get get from Sol, until you can prove your worth.”

  It was a start. Alliances were crucial if Halow and Sol stood any chance of surviving Oberon’s forces.

  “We can help each other. I believe that,” she continued. “I’d like to send a small fleet of ships to scour Halow for survivors. We’ll house them like we have Hapters’s refugees. You know where the survivors are. You can direct the fleet.”

  That was more than I’d hoped for. What was the catch? “What do you want from me in return?”

  “The truth.”

  If I told her about the polestar, the humans would be all over it. They hadn’t been able to wield magic in the past, but hundreds of years had passed and things change.

  “Can’t you trust I’m trying to stop this war before there’s nothing left of humanity?”

  “If you were just Marshal Kellee, maybe. But you’re not who you appear to be, and neither is your extremely powerful fae friend. In my shoes, you wouldn’t trust you either. Tell me why you came to Earth, and I’ll help you save Halow lives.”

  She could be a valuable ally. She had trusted me not to kill her when she freed the restraint back in the lab, and she continued to trust me here, over steak and wine. I could kill her in seconds and go free Talen, and we’d be on our way again within an Earthen hour. But that plan was too shortsighted and wouldn’t save lives.

  I offered my hand across the table. “Shake on it and I’ll tell you.”

  She closed her hand around mine. We shook in the old Earthen style, and she nodded triumphantly.

  “Faerie’s queen and her heir took Faerie’s polestar from the sky and used it to drive the unseelie out of Faerie…” I told the tale as I knew it and watched Pierce lose her smile and the color drain from her face as the magnitude of the threat became clear.

  “I know at least one polestar piece is on Faerie. There was one in Valand, but it was taken, and another in Halow. Enough years have passed for the disguised pieces to fall into the wrong hands. We don’t know where the other pieces are.”

  “And you came for the acorn? That one little acorn is part of a powerful Faerie weapon?” She looked pale and drawn. It was a lot to take in for a mundane being. “I’ve visited that museum a hundred times. It’s just an acorn. One of the first discovered in the rubble of the third world war.”

  “That’s what it wants you to think.”

  She laughed incredulously. “Are you telling me it’s somehow… sentient?”

  I knew how it sounded to a human whose entire world was built on science and tek. “It’s a part of Faerie, so you can bet it’s alive.”

  She mulled over my tale. “It’s too ridiculous to be a lie. So, assuming I believe everything, how bad is this, Marshal?”

  With Kesh on Faerie, right beside Oberon, he could already have all the pieces he needed. All but the acorn. “We came to Earth to secure the final piece and take it out of the game completely.”

&n
bsp; “It seems to me you removed it from a highly secure facility and brought it out into the open where it’s vulnerable.”

  “Only if you know what to look for, and only a handful of people do. Oberon is one. He always knew where to find it …” I trailed off, recalling how Kesh could walk through tek-scanners without detection. She called herself a tek-whisperer. Oberon had made her that way. I’d thought it strange, a fae dabbling in tek, and hadn’t understood why the future king would waste time doing such a thing.

  He had always planned to send Kesh to Earth. She was the perfect tool for the job. She could have walked right into that museum undetected, taken the acorn, and slipped away again like a ghost. That was why he’d kept her alive and hadn’t simply removed the polestar fragment from inside her.

  “Marshal?”

  Oberon had crafted her to be that tool in every possible way. And now she was beside him once again. She’d fight him—I had to believe that—but I also knew how difficult it was to fight your nature. A twitch in my mind and something else shook loose. A dream. A memory. Eledan with his forearms pressed together. A key. Marks like Kesh’s. Oberon had given her those marks thinking his brother was dead. She was Oberon’s backup plan. Kesh was his everything. And foolish Arran had delivered her to her fate.

  “Kellee?”

  She was fighting to stop the king, and I was feasting with a human on a single ship in the hope she might—what? Save a few Halow refugees? It wouldn’t matter. None of this would matter if Oberon got his claws back into Kesh.

  I plucked Eledan’s words from a dream. Lives don’t matter. Your precious little individuals don’t matter. Worlds don’t matter. Humans and their toys don’t matter. Because if left unchecked, the dark will consume all.

  He was right.

  I stood. “Thank you, for all this, and for believing me, but there’s something I need to do and it’s waited long enough.”

  “Marshal? Are you all right?”

  “Rally your crew. I’ll give you what you need to save Halow’s people, but you must return my team to Calicto.”

  “And the acorn?”

  I couldn’t trust it with her or anyone else with it. Instinct had me wanting to bury the acorn on a distant planet where it would be forgotten, but Eledan’s dream circled around my thoughts, picking them apart: his warning, his marks, Kesh’s marks, the key, and my promise to do the right thing when the time came. Oberon might not be the worst of what was to come.

  “The acorn stays with me.”

  Captain Pierce held my gaze. “Then so do I.”

  “The ship’s moving. Where are we headed?” Hulia asked, falling into step beside me as we walked Excalibur’s corridors. We didn’t have an escort, but the ship’s tek was always watching.

  “Halow. We’re getting off at Calicto.”

  “We’re going home?”

  “You are.” I kept my voice low, not that it would make a difference. The human tek was probably listening.

  “And they’re just letting us go?” She arched an eyebrow, unconvinced.

  Some of the crew passed by, giving us as wide a berth as possible. Couldn’t blame them that. For all Pierce’s promises, there would be members of her crew that wouldn’t react well to the news that Drochfhoula and the Nightshade were now part of the team.

  “Talen is… feeling a little off,” she began, her gaze skipping around us. “He was better in the forest, but the second they picked us up…”

  Why did I get the sense that a little off was an understatement? The fae didn’t do anything small scale.

  “I came to find you before… we had a situation.”

  Wonderful. I sped up. “On a scale of one to ten?”

  “Nine.”

  Great. I needed Talen on his best behavior for this truce to hold. “We’ll be back on Calicto in less than two days.”

  He’d have to hold out until then. Hulia’s frown didn’t fill me with confidence.

  When we reached Talen’s cabin and I opened the door, the sight inside didn’t look too bad at first.

  Talen sat on the cot, hunched forward with his hands gripping the bed. He held himself locked in this position while he stared at the floor. The lights flickered, and in the moments between light and dark, a different creature adopted his place. One with wings that choked out all space and gleaming claws.

  “Close the door.”

  The door hissed closed.

  This was bad.

  “Why is he like this now?” Hulia whispered, hanging back by the door.

  “Too much tek exposure. In the prison, we kept tek to a minimum to avoid… this.”

  Hulia nodded, hesitated, then asked, “What is this?”

  “This is what happens when the dark gets neglected and wants to come out and play. Unfortunately, the Nightshade doesn’t always play nice.”

  Hulia knew what it was like. She had unseelie in her, the same as I did. We both had our cravings and desires that needed to be met, or else they began to take over. Talen was no different, only he had two warring sides inside him. Light and dark. Unseelie and seelie. And the tek made it all a hundred times worse.

  “If Kesh were here…” There was no point in finishing that thought. She wasn’t here. He didn’t have her light to hold him up or temper the thing inside him.

  “Can we fix it?”

  Not without terrifying the entire Excalibur crew. “No.”

  I knelt just outside the spot on the floor he stared at. He knew we were here, heard every word, but all his control was focused on keeping himself from losing his shit. He’d lost it once in my care, in an older tek-riddled cell. After what I’d seen, I hadn’t slept for weeks. “Talen… you gotta hang in there. We’re going back to Calicto. Pierce is working with us. We have the ship. We’re saving people. We’re going to get Shinj and Kesh. Impossibly, our plan is moving forward. I really need you not to fuck this up.”

  When he flicked his eyes up, they shone a solid silver.

  He wouldn’t last two days. He’d lose it, and then we’d be back at the beginning, with Sol assuming we were the enemy. “If I can live through tek crawling through my veins, you can fight this for a few more days.”

  His mouth found a smile, but he wore it like a man possessed.

  I glanced back at Hulia. She looked like she might bolt at any second.

  There had to be a way…

  “Kesh,” Talen hissed.

  “Yeah, I know, I get it…” I straightened. “Kesh is a thousand light years away, dealing with her own shit.”

  He started trembling.

  I breathed in, held it, and dragged a hand across my chin. There was one thing that would buy us time.

  Hulia’s frown deepened.

  I’d probably regret this.

  I drew my fist back, gripped his shoulder—“Payback”—and punched him swiftly in the face. It wasn’t like I didn’t owe him for flooring me.

  He fell back, sprawled on the bed, out cold.

  “That oughta last.” I shook the pain out of my hand. “Sweet dreams, fae.” I turned to Hulia. “The crew can’t know he’s out cold. He’s the only thing keeping them from locking us all up.”

  “All right,” she hedged. “Why do I get the feeling you’re about to ask me to do something I won’t like?”

  “Hit me.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t have time to fall asleep. I need to be unconscious to find Eledan.”

  “Wait, what? Eledan? That’s not a good idea. Why?”

  “As we leave Sol and get closer to Calicto, his ability to reach us in our dreams will get stronger. He needs to dream up Kesh so the Nightshade here thinks her light is close. It’ll help him control his unseelie side.”

  “Really?”

  “I’ve no idea. But it’s all I’ve got.” I beckoned at my face. “Hit me.”

  Hulia laughed. “Honey, I’m not hitting you. I might as well hit a wall. It’s a stupid idea.”

  “Hulia, you’ve wanted to hit m
e since I busted you for illegal cyn distribution.”

  “That”—she pointed—“wasn’t me.”

  “You can’t deny it. Evidence doesn’t lie, and I had you buried in it.”

  “Marshal Kellee.” She waggled her finger. “You… you don’t know everything, but you’re right. There is one thing I’ve wanted to do since you flounced all of your pretty into my bar.”

  She stepped in, clasped my face in her hands, and slammed her mouth over mine. I’d had my ample share of women ramming their tongues down my throat to know when to take it with composure and when to fight them off. Hulia’s kiss speared into the masculine part of me and rooted there, getting comfortable. Reason told me the namu in her had me pegged and knew that unguarded and surprised, I didn’t stand a chance. Whether I kissed her back was lost in the curious sensation of having my control ripped out from under me. Unconsciousness rushed in, wrapped me in its embrace, and yanked me out of reality. I learned something new that day. Vakaru could fuck a fae unconscious, and namu could do the same with a kiss.

  “I’m not your errand boy, Marshal.” Eledan glowered from his position on his dream-throne. But this throne was different, as was the room made of columns and mirrors. I’d never been here before, but the location seemed significant. Lots of glass and reflections. The prince also appeared different. Refreshed and new. His ever-present smile was missing.

  “You still want me to help you when the time comes?”

  “You will help me. It’s not a deal, it’s an understanding.”

  “Do you have something better to do?” I figured not, as he’d answered my call.

  “Just because I sleep doesn’t mean I’m idle. Dreamweaving is an art lost on you.”

  Oh, I had no doubt he was in the minds of others, tweaking their desires and making deals. In many ways, Eledan was more a threat like this than he had been when alive. We were all open and vulnerable in our dreams. “Talen needs Kesh. Why don’t you find it in that rotten heart of yours to do something good for a change?”

  “You want me to conjure a Kesh to soothe the Nightshade’s desires?” He laughed, rose to his feet, and stepped down from the dais. “Why don’t you soothe his desires, seeing as you’re such good friends.” A crown appeared on his head and madness brightened his eyes. “Kesh has dreamed it often enough.”