Wicked

by Jennifer L. Armentrout

  side, revealing he had a deep dimple in his right cheek.

  Shaun had dimples.

  My breath caught sharply as the lancing pain in my chest that always accompanied thoughts of Shaun warred with my side for attention.

  The guy's extraordinary emerald gaze flicked away from mine and up the stairs. "She's alive."

  That voice. Whoa. Deep. Smooth. Cultured sounding. Yummy.

  "And she's staring at me really intensely. Kind of unnerving. Like the blank stare of a sociopath."

  I frowned.

  "Who is it?" asked another voice, and yeah, that was Harris. "I can't tell who it is on the monitor and I ain't got my glasses on."

  Harris couldn't see two feet in front of his face without his glasses.

  Green Eyes met my gaze again, and that grin spread across his face. Dammit. He had a matching set when it came to dimples. "How would I know? But she kind of looks like that chick from the movie Brave. You know, the one with the really curly red hair."

  What. In. The. Hell.

  "She's got really pretty blue eyes, though."

  Though. Though? As if that somehow made up for the fact that I had frizzy red hair like a Disney character.

  "Shit," said Harris. His footsteps thudded down the stairs. "That'll be Ivy Morgan."

  Seriously? That's how people know me? They could say I looked like the chick from Brave and they were like oh, that's Ivy?

  I needed to dye my hair stat.

  Wait, why was this dude watching Disney movies?

  Green Eyes hovered over me, his head tilted to the side as his gaze drifted off my face. "She's bleeding along the stomach." He reached between us. "I think she's—"

  I snapped out of whatever stupor I was in, and with a burst of energy I managed to catch his wrist before he got very far. His skin was warm and smooth. "Don't touch me," I gritted out.

  His eyes met mine again, and for a moment, he didn't move, and I was struck again by his handsomeness. It wasn't often one saw a mortal male that rivaled the beauty of the fae. Then he easily slipped his hand free and rocked back on the lower step, kneeling. He raised his hands to his sides. "Not something I usually hear from the ladies, but your wish is my command."

  I would've rolled my eyes if I wasn't concentrating on not seeing double. "That's . . . original."

  A deep, rolling chuckle rumbled out of him as he rested his hands on his bent knees. "If it works, don't fix it is my mantra."

  "Classy," I rasped, planting my hands on the step.

  "I wouldn't do that if I were you," he commented helpfully.

  Ignoring him, I pushed up into a sitting position, and a harsh burst of air parted my lips as the dull ache fired to life.

  "Told you."

  My narrowed gaze swung to the guy, but before I could say anything, Harris was at my side, his large body swallowing the stairwell. "What happened to ya, girl?"

  "Got shot." I lifted my chin, my mouth dry as a desert. Since Green Eyes was with Harris, I took a leap of logic and assumed he was with the Order. "A fae shot me."

  Harris bent over, settling a hand on my shoulder. The deep wrinkles around his eyes increased. "Girl, the fae don't use guns. Not sure why. They just never did it, and I ain't gonna look a gift horse in the mouth."

  I gestured at my stomach with my bloodstained hand. "Obviously, I've . . . been shot, and it was a fae—a fae that didn't need any glamour."

  "What?" Green Eyes asked sharply, and I looked at him.

  His face started to get a little fuzzy around the edges, but that didn't detract from his attractiveness. "This fae didn't have silver skin. I couldn't . . . see his ears, but he had fae eyes. There was no glamour that I could tell. And he . . . conjured a gun out of thin air."

  Green Eyes' brows flew up.

  "Okay. Imma thinking ya might have hit ya head," Harris said, gripping my upper arm. "Let's get ya upstairs and take a look at ya."

  "I didn't hit my head. I'm . . . telling you what I saw. He was a fae and he . . ." As Harris hauled me to my feet, Green Eyes rose, and the stairwell blinked out for a moment like a switch was thrown. "Whoa."

  Harris said something, but all I could hear was this strange roaring sound, like the ground was shifting underneath and reaching up to grab me. I opened my mouth, but my tongue felt heavy and foreign, and utterly useless.

  The entire building seemed to spin, and the last thing I heard before the world went black was Green Eyes sharp curse, and the last thought in my head was if I was going to be number four to die.

  ~

  When I opened my eyes, particles of dust danced in the daylight streaming through the windows across from me. For a moment, I had no idea where I was or how I got here, but as I watched those tiny particles shimmer and fall, my memories slowly pieced back together.

  I was at headquarters of the Order, most likely on the third floor, away from all the meeting and training rooms that thrummed with activity during the day. It was a huge infirmary room, outfitted to handle several patients at a time. There was another room, next to the bathroom that I'd never been inside of. I didn't think anyone except David went into that room. Val and I were convinced they were hiding a nation's worth of treasure in there.

  The cot I lay on wasn't the most comfortable, but it was better than having the edge of the step pressing into my back, and someone had tucked a thin blanket around me.

  Probably Harris. He was a big bear of a man, but he had a soft spot in his chest the size of Lake Pontchartrain.

  I'd been shot.

  Oh God—shot by a fae that didn't have silvery skin and could conjure a gun out of nothing. This was major news, and it changed everything. If the fae no longer needed glamour, how could we tell them apart from everyone else? It's not as if they were the only ones with pale eyes, plus there was a thing called contacts. And even more important, what I forgot to tell Harris was the fact that I stabbed the fae and it had done nothing.

  A door opened, drawing my attention. I squinted as a form appeared, crossing through the bright streams of light toward my bed. An image of Green Eyes, the stranger who seriously looked like an angel, formed in my thoughts, and a strange tumbling sensation hit me in the stomach.

  I didn't like the feeling.

  But it wasn't Green Eyes who took shape the closer he got to my bed. It was our fearless leader, David Faustin, and he looked annoyed as usual.

  David was sort of ageless, in a way where he could be in his forties, his fifties, or even his sixties, but no one knew. His skin, a shade or two darker than Val's, was mostly free of wrinkles, and he kept his body in rigorous shape. He wasn't smiling as he grabbed a folding chair and plopped it down next to my bed.

  He dropped into the seat, arms across his chest. "You're alive."

  "You're full of warm and fuzzies," I croaked.

  One dark brow arched. "I'm assuming this is why you called me last night. Would've answered, but Laurie would be downright pissed if I left her hanging, if you get my drift."

  My nose wrinkled. I totally didn't need that image that was just painted in my head. David and Laurie had been married for about a decade, having met when Laurie was transferred by the Order to New Orleans. Two Order members hooking up was pretty much the norm since the knowledge of the fae and our duty was passed down from one generation to the next, and our life expectancies weren't the greatest. Many Order members never married. Others that did and had kids, like my real parents, ended up being killed, and another family involved in the Order cared for them.

  Having already lost my real and adoptive parents, and my . . . boyfriend to the fae, I couldn't wrap my head around falling in love again. Getting close to Val and a few others in the Order was risky enough, because I knew that at any moment they could die on the job. So it was hard for me to see so many of the Order members coupling up and opening themselves up to a world of hurt that never truly faded no matter how much time passed.

  But Laurie and David were deeply in love despite all that, even though Da
vid had the personality of a rabid chupacabra and Laurie was as sweet as a praline.

  "Talked to Harris when he called me. He said it was just a flesh wound that bled a lot, probably made worse by you running."

  Pink crept into my cheeks as I stared at David. "I didn't run because I'm a coward. He had—"

  "I didn't say you were a coward, Ivy. The man had a gun. You cannot fight a bullet."

  Still, the tone of his voice stung like a sting from a hornet. I wet my lips. "It wasn't a man."

  David eyed me for a second then reached toward the table next to my bed. "Thirsty?"

  "Yeah. My mouth feels like sandpaper."

  He poured water into a plastic cup, and just the tinkling sound was enough to drive me crazy. "Need help sitting up?"

  Members of the Order weren't weak, so I took a deep breath as I shook my head and forced myself to sit up. There was a dull twinge of pain along the left side of my stomach, but not as bad as I expected.

  "Harris gave you a shot while you were out, so you shouldn't be feeling too much pain." David noted what must've been reading my mind as he handed over the water. "You want to drink that slowly."

  The moment the cool wet stuff hit my lips, it was hard not to gulp it down, but I managed to not look like a horse at a trough.

  David leaned back, grabbing a bottle out of his pocket. "Here are some pain meds to use if your stomach starts hurting, which Harris said probably would for a day or so since he had to stitch you closed." He tossed the bottle toward my lap, where it landed with a little rattle. "I'm gonna pull you off rotation until next Wednesday."

  I lowered my empty cup. "What? Why? I can—"

  "Your wound could reopen when you're fighting. We don't need you bleeding all over our steps again like a stuck pig. You're off until next Wednesday."

  I was knocking off points for lack of empathy. "But I'm working for Val this Saturday."

  "Not anymore. She needs to find someone else or do it herself. Not your problem." He refilled my cup from the pitcher. "Do you have class today?"

  It took me a moment to catch up with what he was asking and figure out what day it was. "It's Thursday, right? I don't have class again until tomorrow." Normally, I worked Monday through Friday and had the weekends off. "About what happened last night. David, the fae—"

  "I know what you said to Harris and Ren, but—"

  "Ren? Who's Ren?" Then it hit me, and my tongue silently worked around the name. "Is he the guy with green eyes?"

  David tilted his head to the side as he scowled. "Well, I haven't really been checking out the boy's eye color, but he was with Harris last night when you bled on my steps."

  "I didn't bleed on your steps on purpose," I snapped.

  His brows flew up. "Are you taking a tone with me? Because I'll take that cup of water right away from you."

  "I'll never let go." I cradled the cup of water to my chest as I eyed him. "Never."

  David's lips twitched as if he wished to smile, but he was too cool to do that. The man was a brick of ice. "Anyway, Ren Owens is from Colorado, transferring to our sect."

  Oh. Colorado. Never been, but always wanted to visit. And what kind of name was Ren Owens?

  "But back to what you said you saw, there's no way that's how it went down," he said. "The fae must've had the gun for some reason, and yes, that is concerning but expected. We knew eventually they would start using human weapons."

  Frustration pricked at my skin like a heat rash. "The fae wasn't using glamour. Or maybe he was, but it didn't matter. His skin wasn't silver. It was . . . I don't know. Like a deep tan—an olive color."

  He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. "Are you sure it was a fae, Ivy?"

  "Yes! I'm sure, David. He made a gun appear out of thin air, and I threw my stake at him. It hit him in the chest, and it didn't do a thing to him. He pulled it out and tossed it aside."

  He opened his mouth and seemed at a loss for words as he stared at me.

  "Yeah. Exactly. The man wasn't human, David. He was a fae that didn't have silver skin, could conjure a gun out of nowhere, and the iron stake did nothing to him. Didn't burn him. Didn't send him back to the Otherworld. It did nothing."

  "Impossible," he said after a moment, and my shoulders tensed with irritation.

  "I know what I saw. And you know me. I'm not unreliable. Never once have you ever had to question me or—"

  "Except the time you ended up in jail."

  "Okay. Except that one time, but what I'm telling you is the truth. I don't know what it means, but . . ." A trickle of fear moved through my veins, forming a ball of unease in the pit of my stomach. I downed the glass of water and sat the plastic cup aside, but it didn't lessen the feeling. "If hitting a fae with iron does nothing to them, then they would be unstoppable."

  "No, they would be an ancient," David said, and then stood.

  My eyes widened at a word I hadn't heard spoken in a long time, not since I was a child and Holly and her husband Adrian would tell me stories of the race of the oldest and deadliest of fae—the warrior knights of their courts, the princesses and the princes, and the kings and queens. Fae that could change shape and form, and had abilities beyond our understanding. None of the fae that walked the mortal realm lived as long as the ancients had in the Otherworld, at least not as far as any of us knew. Basically, the ancients were the kind of fae that could wreak untold havoc in the mortal world if they ever crossed over. It never even occurred to me that the one I faced last night could've been an ancient.

  "I thought they were all sealed in the Otherworld," I said. "When the doorways were closed, they—"

  "They were." David walked to the window and pulled the flimsy pale blue curtain back. "It could be possible that a few remained here undetected, but it's very unlikely."

  That ball of unease doubled in size. "But not impossible?"

  Letting the curtain fall back into place, he rubbed a hand over the tight curls that were sheared close to his skull. "Very unlikely. It seems far-fetched that there'd be one who survived this amount of time without our knowledge—without anyone seeing it."

  "I saw it," I said. "And this one could easily blend in. If you weren't looking straight at it, paying attention, you wouldn't even know it was a fae."

  David faced me. "We don't know what you really saw." He held up his hand as I opened my mouth to protest. "We don't, Ivy. That doesn't mean I'm disregarding what you're reporting to me. I'm going to contact the other sects and see if they have had any experiences like this, but until I hear back from them, we need to keep this quiet."

  At least he was starting to take what happened seriously. For that I was grateful. Reaching down, I tossed the blanket off my legs and carefully swung them off the edge of the bed. "Shouldn't we warn the others?"

  "And create a panic situation, one where we have members killing humans because we think they might be an ancient?"

  "But—"

  "Ivy," he warned. "I cannot afford for any of our members to panic, or for innocent lives to be lost."

  I didn't like it, but I conceded. "I'll keep quiet."

  Doubt crossed his features. "That also means not telling Valerie, who, by the way, you might want to call before she flips her shit."

  "Ye of little faith," I murmured, tugging at my bloodstained shirt. Thank goodness it was black or I would've scared the bejeezus out of a bunch of people last night, running all bloody.

  "I'm being serious." He pierced me with a stern look. "Tell no one until we know what we're dealing with, especially when we have suffered as many losses as we have this year. You understand me?"

  I kind of felt like a misbehaving child when he looked at me like that. The man was hard to deal with, but since I'd lost my family, he was the closest thing I had to a . . . to a father figure. "I understand, David."

  "I would hope that you do." He placed his hands on his hips. "Look, take as long as you need here, then go ahead and head home. Remember, you're off until Wednesday, but
I expect to see you at the meeting tomorrow."

  Baby Jesus could land in front of me, and I wouldn't miss the weekly bitch session.

  He started to leave but then stopped. "Did the fae say anything to you?"

  Sliding off the bed, I ignored the tender pull of the skin over my stomach. "Nothing really. I mean, he creeped up on me after I got rid of another fae—a normal one who said the same old 'your