So Dark the Night

by Elle Cross

  "You blessed me with your blood, my queen." For emphasis, he licked his lips. The moment came roaring back.

  Dammit, I’d forgotten I shared blood. Bonds were made easily enough, and they didn't have to be permanent. But among a court, especially a queen's Inner Circle, bonds were more entangling. Power carried most strongly through blood and sex.

  I hadn't really shared either with any of my Inner Circle. Until tonight. I hadn't wanted to weaken them by being bonded to me. I shouldn't have been their queen.

  A switch had flipped, then. Something like anger rose and it threatened to choke me with its intensity. It was coming from West.

  “You are my queen because I choose to follow you.” Though his voice shook with leashed power, he spoke each word clearly.

  “West? Could you give me space? Please.” I whispered the last.

  The tension around me dissipated, like it was suddenly withdrawn, but he was still upset. “Why are you afraid, Karina?” Then another beat. “Are you afraid of me?”

  I didn’t know how to answer that, so I just blinked and gave a sorry half shrug.

  He withdrew from being so close to my shields just a slight tilt back, but he didn’t move away. “You are afraid of me.” He crossed his arms, his lips a grim line.

  “Well. You looked kind of murder-y right then. So...” I wasn’t about to admit that these delicious feelings…this hunger…that he awoke on my skin also kinda scared me.

  He stared at my lips until I stopped biting them. “You know I would never hurt you. Could never hurt you. I was angry—at the Shrikes attacking you, at the thought of you dying after seeing that you were alive again, at my stupidity for being nearly too late. At the thought that you have denied a bond with us because you think you don't deserve to be our queen.” The anger started to rise again, and he had to take a breath. “But not at you. Never at you.”

  He traced my shields with his fingers, lightning crackling over it in pretty blue and purple arcs. My favorite colors.

  “I remember,” he whispered, his maelstrom eyes full of longing.

  I was projecting my thoughts. I needed to get a better grip on myself. This was West, someone who had been more a friend and advisor, and it was like I’d forgotten my entire training. Mental shields, auras, everything were—poof!—gone.

  “West, I need you not to touch me. Please. I don’t want my scent on you, and definitely not my blood. I don’t think that would be wise.” The clattering footsteps of Shrikes when they scented me echoed in my memories.

  “I can take care of myself. And if there are things after you, I am here to protect you. From here on out.”

  He said it like an oath. A vow. I hadn't accepted it while at the Nightmare Court, and I wouldn't accept it now. He deserved to be allied with a sovereign that was worthy of his loyalty, not someone who gave up and chose to die.

  I could not protect him. I could barely protect myself. I attracted challenges. And evidently, Hunters.

  “Karina, if you would just let me touch you, you would be able to unlock your memories soon and remember everything. Especially when Enver arrives, we will be able to find any past trauma,” he swallowed that word down as another wave of anger coursed over him. “We will heal you and you will set up your Court and we will be your Power Base and Inner Circle.”

  I blinked, understanding finally dawned on me, and I carefully hid behind my mental shields. He was not going slightly insane or unhinged like I’d thought. He thought I’d lost my memory or had an accident or something, and he was trying to win me over like I was some broken wild thing he had found in the forest and attempted to subdue and soothe.

  Oh my. What would he do if he knew that I consciously left the Fold? That I had planned all this out so I could escape the Fold and my mother’s Nightmare Court and find some semblance of peace?

  So what if I was bored or scared most of the time.

  I cautiously inched myself from the circle of his arms. It was nearly comical how he observed my actions, without judgment, without trying to stop me, until I was at a safe distance away from him fogging up my mind.

  “Heal any past trauma, huh? Is that what my mother said to you when she commanded you to find me?”

  “No one commands us, my queen, but you. Not even your mother.” His tone was steely and unyielding, like the cold facts he preferred. But his touch was soft as he reached out to me and grasped my hand. “Through the Oracles, she revealed to us that you have escaped death, and that you were lost here in the limbo of the Shadow Realm living among the Shades.” The way he said it made it sound like I’d been found in some kind of trash heap.

  “Queen Thana didn’t know how to find you, and neither did we. We were concerned because she said that you have forgotten yourself and needed to remember who you were.” Then his face softened. “But then we heard your call, and we all tore through the veils to get to you.”

  The way he looked at me…damn, it was like those silly emojis where cartoons had hearts for eyes. It made my stomach feel weird and squicky. We didn’t usually do this gooey romance thing. And he especially did not.

  I was cut off from most attachments in the court; my relationship with West was the same. We always seemed easy, casual, and uncomplicated. He was quick, efficient, and never, ever deviated from his course. He was as sure as the targets that he never missed.

  And we were never ever romantically connected.

  Did I have to die to gain romantic interest? Perhaps absence did make the heart grow fonder?

  I shook my head as if that could physically remove the uncomfortable thoughts and the unfamiliar emotions they stirred up. Not only that, but I could not stand lying to West. My mother had a way of skewing and shading her words though. It was the work of a political mastermind that was for sure.

  She hadn’t lied. She never told him that I had actually lost my memory, or that I had died, or anything that they would have commonly understood as logical reasons why I was living like a Shade in this Shadow Realm.

  And what she said was pretty accurate from her point of view. She truly wanted me to remember who I was. A daughter of the Queen.

  But that was exactly what I wanted to forget, but couldn’t.

  “West, I would like to ask you something.”

  “Anything.”

  “Would it be possible to forget you ever found me? All of you?”

  Questions screamed from within his being, but none fell past his lips. He only cocked his eyebrow. Yeah, didn’t think that would have worked.

  His expression softened. “Think about it. Your power calls to us through your blood now spilled on earth. Your scent is in the air, in the wind. Not only that, those that would prey on you would know where you are now. There is no way we would let you be unprotected and alone again. Even if you order it, that’s the one order we don’t have to obey.” He reached out to try to touch my cheek, but I turned my face away from him, stepping out of his reach.

  I didn’t know this West. The one who kept trying to be near me and touch me. The West I knew teased and joked and pranked me. This one…made me nervous.

  He closed the distance, but didn’t try to touch me again. Just inhaled deeply, scenting my hair, my neck. He chose his words carefully. “You have been missed, Karina. Dearly missed. I missed you.”

  He looked away from me for the first time since I saw him, a lost boy in full armor. The pang of guilt still sliced my heart.

  This was exactly what I didn’t want to happen. I didn’t want them to know I was alive. I was supposed to be dead to them, dead and gone, among the Shades for real where no one from the Fold would think to go looking for me.

  After all, who would have voluntarily walked into hell to bring back the dead?

 

  Yes, tonight they had all proven that they would come for me, didn’t they? I didn’t realize that I was crying. The silent tears fell unchecked. I swiped at my face like an idiot.

  West’s fists kept clen
ching and unclenching and he was a ball of nearly ignitable energy. “Let me help you. Please,” he pleaded with me, his voice strained by his fraying control to hold back thoughts and words that would have normally flowed easily from him.

  I rubbed my face.

  He couldn’t help me. Not in the way I needed to be helped. No one could.

  The thoughts, the memories…the loneliness.

  It was selfish of me. Damned selfish. But I sighed my flimsy shields away.

  He gathered me in his arms, tucking me under his chin, stroking my hair. “You have burdens that you don’t need to carry alone, Karina.”

  If only he knew. But even I couldn’t put into words what I felt. What I’d always felt. Like I was both hollowed out yet heavy at the same time. Scraped so raw that it was hard to breathe some days, hard to move.

  Sometimes it wasn’t so hard, and I could even laugh and dance and sing.

  I hated those days the most because I knew they would end.

  My silent tears drenched his neck, collected in a pool on his shirt.

  I didn’t control them. Didn’t have the strength to try.

  He just held me tight, lifting me in his arms so that he sat on the couch with me tucked on his lap. “I may not be able to carry your burden for you, but I sure as hell can carry you.”

  Another voice added in the thread. Enver. Faint but there.

  Enver

  WEST’S RAGE SHOOK THROUGH our shared thread. As the calmest warrior in our group, his ire was unsettling.

 

  The drop of blood bond I’d shared with Karina was a mere gossamer thread. It was enough for me to pinpoint her, but not enough to hear her, at least not without West.

 

  I needed to make sure those Shrikes were gone. A whole fucking flock had been unleashed into this Fold for the purposes of flushing out my queen. My blood boiled at the thought.

  "What the actual fuck, Prince?" Havoc punctuated his frustration, one we all shared, by punching a hole through a few Shrikes' chests. Always so volatile. "What was that shit I just heard from West? Why the fuck was my queen worried about being some fucking burden? Why the fuck is she worried at all?" He ripped off a Hell Hound's head, and set the body on fire, and he was still seething.

  Yes, West was the best choice of sitting with Karina. For now.

 

  I smirked at my queen's 'gentle giant' pulling the arms off a Shrike male. Gentle, indeed.

 

  He harrumphed, but didn't challenge my decision.

  I called over to Havoc, and gestured at the alley. "Burn up her scent."

  "It smells so good, though," he tsked under his breath, but he still did it.

  We weren't going to risk Hunters finding our queen, not if we could help it.

  "You bet your ass we're not," Havoc said. "Now let's go. You got to see her, I haven't yet."

  We were all dying to see her—and if she'd let us, hold her—and ready to kill anything that stood in our way.

  “And we won’t until we make false trails to lead these fuckers far, far away from here.”

  Karina

  I started to feel better. I didn't know if it was the cry, the connection with West, or just being able to share, but I didn't feel so tired, physically or mentally.

  I realized that I didn't know where Una had run off to after I'd woken up. I excused myself, suddenly self-conscious that I had cried all over West. I must have looked a mess.

  "You're always beautiful."

  I tried hard to keep his gaze. It was important for me to be able to speak to my own Inner Circle, to meet them as equals. "Thank you, but you don't have to say stuff like that, okay?"

  "Stuff like what?"

  "All that 'beautiful' stuff. It's fine. I don't need to hear it."

  "You do though. You need to hear all the good things we believe of you. And, if you don't want to hear it, fine, but I will still say it in the interest of being truthful."

  I deferred to his logic. I didn't want to censor what he wanted to say. I just wanted to make sure he knew that I didn't need to hear him coddle me that way. "As long as you're being honest and intentional."

  "Always. Words have power."

  That at least, we could agree on. "Words have power," I repeated on the way to my bathroom.

  After I washed up, I sought out the mirror that I had used earlier today. Gods above and below, I couldn't believe that it was still today. I rubbed my hands over my face. Such a long day.

  I could feel West's agitation like nettles against my skin. Trying to keep my thread and bond quiet probably didn’t help him when he was determined to make sure I was safe. He didn't like me being out of sight for too long.

  I carried the box over to the living room. I kind of felt Una's presence there, but I didn't know whether or not it was because I thought I was supposed to feel her presence or because she was actually there.

  I knelt on the floor, re-opening the box and setting it up on my coffee table. I opened a connection to the Oracles.

  Wordlessly, West lifted me up from the floor and sat me on the couch between his legs. I swallowed, convincing my body that his body was just the extension of the couch. No reason to be all excited.

  The breath of the Oracle moved, and the glass shivered into ripples. I could almost sense the piety coming from West, like he didn't want to see or bear witness to anything the Oracles say.

  "Lady Brightling. Do you have news?"

  "Yes. I found the information, but haven't had a chance to look it over. Seems that when I went to the precinct, something followed me home. I want to know what you know of it. There's no reason for the Dark Fold's hunters to be after me en masse. That's stupid."

  "What do you mean, Lady Brightling?"

  "When I came home, a Shrike pair came after me. That pair attracted many more. If my men hadn't come I may not be here."

  West covered my hand with his. A silent, but effective gesture that let me know that he was there.

  "This was separate from that attack inside the subway station, then?"

  “Separate attack?” His hand clamped down tightly around mine.

  I felt like flames erupted on my face.

  "It was no big deal—"

  The voice of the Oracle cut me off. "She was saved by a ghost, who should be there with you. She has an important role to fulfill."

  I felt like I could melt under West's growing ire. "All right, I get that you want me to figure out who is killing these Oracles. Great. But why is every type of Hunter after me? I had Banshees, Wraiths, and Hell Hounds after me. Then, Shrikes. And I don't know what else, given that the rest of my Inner Circle was fighting them off, while I was here barely able to keep myself together.

  “So, you better tell me a nice story about what's after me, and how I can get them off my scent."

  A flicker like a bad connection pulsed over the mirror, and it smoothed out.

  They were gone, no new connection.

  The television switched on abruptly. West jumped up and shielded me from it.

  “Don’t worry, it’s the television.”

  He looked at it like he wanted to dismember it. “Is this…another kind of Oracle conduit, my queen?” he whispered like he might be in the presence of divinity.

  “No, just an in home design channel.”

  He peered into it. “Do these Shades know their home is being observed?”

  I smiled at his concern. “Yes, it is a pre-recorded show that talks about house remodels. It’s for entertainment.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Watching strangers decorating their home…is entertaining for Shades?”

  I smiled. “Surprisingly yes.” I shrug
ged. “Safer than watching people duel.” I tried to keep the bitterness out, but it crept itself right in there like an uninvited guest.

  He cupped my cheek, caressing my face. “My queen…if we had known—”

  I waved him back. No use revisiting a past I couldn’t change.

  Una appeared as a shimmer line at my side, and then shimmered away to reappear at my foyer where my bag was placed.

  I had wondered where my bag with her files had ended up.

  She pushed the bag forward.

  West jumped again, brandishing his sword, and I realized that he couldn’t see her at all.

  “West, it’s okay, it’s only Una.”

  He blinked to look at me like I’d lost my mind so I explained. “She’s a ghost. She was my shield. Before.” I nodded toward the door as if that indicated where I was dying in a dirty alley.

  He shook his head and put his sword away. “Of course you’d attract ghosts, even here. Forgive my skittishness, my queen.” He looked in the direction of where Una had been. He wouldn’t have known that she was already walking her way toward him. “My apologies, guest. Thank you for protecting my queen.” He placed his hand on my head, brushing my hair.

  Una’s outline came in stronger this time, and West jerked, though didn’t react as strongly as he had done before.

 

  I smiled. Since I could feel and see her, she didn’t bother me.

  “Una, I’m going to find out what happened to you, and why. You’re still okay with that, right?”

  She nodded her head solemnly.

  “Is there anything I can do for you right now?” She usually only appeared like this when she had something to say.

  The channels flickered. “Welcome. Home. Come see. Our House. You’ll never. Want to get away. Welcome. To. Your New Home.”

  I tried to decipher her message. “I know you must miss home. Once we figure out where you live, we can give you the rest you need.”

  “No. Rest. Come. See. The New. Beginnings. Your New House.”

  I was missing something, but I didn’t want to stress about it. She wasn’t in immediate danger, and neither was I.