by J. L. Weil
“And not enough time,” I added softly.
Devyn rested his sword on the table alongside its twin before coming to sit on the bed. “I know it might seem daunting. All that you must do and the weight of such responsibility must be overwhelming. But we’re going to take it one day at a time.”
“One day at a time,” I repeated. “I can do that.”
“Good. Now get some sleep,” he ordered, stretching out his long legs and propping his arms up behind his head. “I have a plan.”
And that scared me even more.
I was pulled from sleep by an instinct that wasn’t human, but I ignored it, telling the Kitsune in me to go away. Two seconds later, the door to our room burst open with a gust of cool wind that made the curtains billow.
It was followed by Belle’s scream, which was far louder than one would expect from a pixie.
Chapter Two
I was officially no longer asleep. “What the hell is going on?” I grumbled, heavy with slumber as I sat up rubbing my eyes. “I swear, Devyn, if you’re hurting Belle, I’ll—” My eyes landed on the dark silhouette of a man in the doorway. I turned to wake Devyn only to find the spot beside me on the bed empty and cold. Where is he? No way would he have just left me.
The hairs on my arms rose one by one, the Kitsune inside me rumbling a warning. My spine stiffened as a splinter of moonlight hit the shadow man. “Dear god, am I dreaming?” I whispered, my fingers clutching the sheets. My fox canines lengthened in my mouth, brushing their lethal points against my tongue—something that had never happened in my human form.
My inner Kitsune was making a statement.
“You’re not dreaming, Kitten.” Devyn stood behind the dark shape and shoved the thing forward—a freaking Silvermyst. What was he doing with a fae? In our motel room?
My mouth dropped open, and Belle suddenly fluttered near my face, pixie dust tickling my nose. “Your boyfriend has gone off the deep end.”
A flare of warmth emitted from my neck, and I reached up to touch the soul star, the heart of my power. “He isn’t my . . . Never mind. It’s not important.”
Devyn wrestled with the fae, shoving him into a chair and kicking the door closed behind him. Seconds later, Wrath and Fury appeared at Devyn’s forearms like living, breathing tattoos. Their tongues licked the air as the twin snakes slithered down Devyn’s arms and wound around the Silvermyst, tying his wrists to the chair.
“Is that going to hold him?” The Silvermyst eyed the sparkling stone on my neck like it was the only star in the sky. I cringed at the hunger that flashed in his milky white eyes. This little charm could end my life, and in the wrong hands, it would be detrimental to this world and the faes.
“As long as Wrath and Fury don’t lose control,” he answered.
Comforting. “Why is there a fae in our motel room, Devyn?” I decided not to beat around the bush. Not with Devyn. It wasn’t like him to bring home strays, especially those that wished to cut my throat and steal my soul. Having a fae assassin, an enemy, in such close confinement was making me feel like a caged fox with nowhere to run.
“Preach it, girl!” Belle shrilled. “He’s lost his mind. He’s going to get us killed.” I wasn’t the only one in a panic. The pixie was flying around the room as if she was on crack.
Devyn glowered at Belle, his eyes tracking her jerky movements. “Let me guess, you saw it in one of your visions?”
It was no secret how Devyn felt about Belle’s fae abilities. He thought her visions of the future were a bunch of mumbo jumbo and not worth putting stock in. But I’d seen too much weird shit in the last few months to discount the pixie or what she could see.
The future might not be set in stone, but it sure didn’t hurt to know what possibilities you might be up against. Then again, knowing the future could be more dangerous than not knowing.
Belle landed on the bed beside me, pacing up and down the pillow. “If I had, I would have been more prepared,” she retorted, her lips set in a grim line.
My eyes returned to the fae, and I found him glaring at me with unyielding hostility. “You will die, bitch,” the Silvermyst hissed.
“He’s a cheery asshole,” I said dryly.
Devyn bent down, putting his face level with the fae’s as his fingers gripped the back of the chair. “I’m only going to say this once, so listen up,” he seethed, flashing his white teeth. “You’ll be dead before you can touch a hair on her head.” He stared the Silvermyst in the eyes before straightening to his full height and thumping the fae on the back of the head.
“I don’t think I like this,” I mumbled, wishing I’d put on a pair of shorts before going to bed. The lack of clothes made me feel vulnerable.
“Me neither,” Belle echoed. Unable to stay still, she took off again, zooming around the Silvermyst’s head and the long silvery hair that framed his eerily pale face.
Devyn ignored the pixie. “He is going to give us answers.”
The Silvermyst snorted in a way that suggested he wouldn’t be providing information voluntarily.
My eyes snagged Devyn’s. “What kind of answers?”
“About what’s happening in the Second Moon.” He pulled out one of his twin blades and slammed it between the fae’s legs. The sword sunk into the carpet, splitting the fibers and going into the subfloor beneath. Devyn tilted his head to the side, a menacing grin on his lips, looking every inch the legendary Sin Eater. “Shall we begin?”
“I’m not telling you shit, filthy traitor. The only thing I’m going to do is kill you, and I’ll enjoy every second of torturing you. And the Kitsune can watch.” A cruel smile twisted his lips.
“Someone put a sock in his mouth. I’m already sick of listening to him talk,” Belle muttered.
Corded muscles in Devyn’s back tightened under his black T-shirt. “I’ll ask the questions. Until then, shut up.”
My mind was reeling, still trying to wrap itself around what was happening. I pulled the blanket around me closer and waited to see what Devyn would do next.
“Which lord did you swear fealty to?” Devyn began his interrogation.
The fae bucked against the bonds of Wrath and Fury, his nostrils flaring, but the snakes' restraints held . . . for now. Devyn stood in front of the fae, his patience enduring until our guest wore himself out or gave up. “I’m going to ask one more time. Whom do you serve?”
The Silvermyst’s response was to spit at Devyn’s feet.
“Wrong answer.” Devyn’s hand flew through the air, backhanding the fae. The crack of flesh and bone echoed throughout the tiny room. The fae’s head snapped to the side, blood pooling at his lip as he slowly turned his head forward and licked the cut with his black tongue.
My stomach churned.
The Silvermyst wore a wry grin. “You know torturing me won’t work. Our training in Thornland was similar, Sin Eater. It will take more than a slap to break me.”
“I know. I wanted to give you the opportunity to be reasonable, but I’m not disappointed. I haven’t had much opportunity here to put my skills to use.” I wasn’t sure I liked what I saw in Devyn’s face; a gleam of ferocity dropped down like a mask of destruction and ruthlessness over it. He was death incarnate, a punisher.
The fae shifted uneasily in his chair. Here, Devyn’s name meant nothing, but in the Second Moon, it was a name that was feared by many, a name that made even the fiercest fae tremble, or so I’d learned. “Are you sure the Kitsune can handle your methods?”
Something in the Silvermyst’s tone sent a warning bell ringing inside me as if he sensed that my relationship with Devyn had morphed into more than friends, but he couldn’t possibly know that. Could he? The way he looked between us—that glimmer of a secret he was dying to tell the world—it made me want to squirm, but I refused, staring the fae dead in the eyes.
Devyn’s face was as hard as ice. “It’s not your job to worry about the queen.”
“She isn’t queen yet,” he hissed.
Very true.
The fae’s nostrils flared again. “I can smell you on her, but it’s the thread between you; it’s different.” His eyes passed between us as if he was examining an invisible string I couldn’t see, and his brows furrowed together like he was deciphering an ancient riddle. “Ryker will be very interested in this development. Very interested indeed.”
Well, that explained it.
I didn’t know the laws of the Second Moon, but I did know that Devyn was considered below my station and it would taint my bloodline to be involved with my Shaman. That still didn’t stop me from loving Devyn. I didn’t grow up with a hierarchy, and it meant nothing to me that Devyn wasn’t royalty, but in the Second Moon, he could be tried for disobeying the laws. I couldn’t let that happen.
“Fury. Wrath,” Devyn called, summoning his pets. The twin snakes responded to his command, lifting their heads with a hiss of their black, forked tongues. They kept their tails twined around the fae’s arms as their triangular heads hovered a mere breath away from our captive’s lips. “How much do you value your soul?” Devyn asked. “I already know your life doesn’t mean shit.”
“You wouldn’t—”
“You came to kill my queen. Try me.”
“Not kill her. Bring her home,” the fae hissed, quick to explain.
Devyn lifted a brow. “You’ll have to forgive me if I don’t believe a word out of your vile mouth. Why would Ryker want her alive?”
“She hasn’t come into her full powers yet,” the Silvermyst went on. “He wants to help her achieve those powers to make sure she sits upon her throne with him as her advisor.”
Devyn clasped a hand on his shoulder, leaning down into the Silvermyst’s face. “Sure he does. Not that it matters if he wants to kill or kidnap her. As long as I’m alive, neither will happen.”
“That’s the key, isn’t it?” the fae said with a grin that meant more trouble was coming.
I sucked in a breath. Devyn. He’d become a high-priority target on my uncles’ kill list. My heart dropped. Without him, I’d be lost.
The Shaman didn’t so much as blink at this revelation, but maybe he’d already suspected as much for some time now. His face remained impassive. “You’re not really giving me anything useful here.”
“Wait!” the fae called out, shrinking away from Wrath’s and Fury’s death kiss.
Devyn’s dark brow flicked up. “I’m listening.”
“Your mom was brought in front of the fae conclave for questioning. You’ve been deemed an outlaw in the Second Moon with a hefty reward on your head. Literally. The first fae to bring your head back on a spike will be granted a place in the gold kingdom.”
Devyn swore under his breath. I didn’t quite catch or understand the word, but Belle gasped.
“That pales in comparison to the fae who brings her back with them.” The fae’s head tilt indicated me.
Devyn reacted like a strike of lightning splitting across a starless sky. A storm churned in his green eyes, transforming them into darkness. His blade was swift, singing through the air toward the fae’s neck, halting only a hair’s breadth from slicing pale skin. If the Silvermyst so much as swallowed or breathed, his life would be over. “It would be a death sentence for anyone who was stupid enough to try.” Devyn’s sword nicked the center of his throat, painting the edge of the steel in tar-like blood.
The fae wisely didn’t respond for risk of pressing the blade farther into his throat.
“What of Katsura? Have either Ryker or Talin invaded her lands?” Devyn asked, withdrawing his sword.
The fae swallowed. “Her kingdom remains untouched . . . for the moment, but it is only a matter of days before one of her uncles sends out his forces. Both have been gathering their armies.”
“Good, let them battle it out. Fools.”
From what little I knew of my uncles, neither man would back down easily, which meant they would fight each other for what was mine by birthright. By doing so, they would weaken their own forces—exactly what Devyn hoped for.
I slipped off the bed to stand in front of the fae sent to kill or kidnap me. It didn’t matter which. Devyn watched him like a hawk. One wrong move and the Silvermyst would lose his head in a blink. “What of the people? Of the land itself?”
The Silvermyst took a whiff of my scent, and a secret smile of satisfaction tugged at my lips, knowing he found my smell as horrific as I found his presence in my room. Faes had extraordinary senses and the ability to sniff out my lineage; a sort of supernatural fingerprint was embedded in my Kitsune scent.
I was still learning how it worked, and because I hadn’t grown up with faes, their signature marks were all new to me and pretty much useless in helping to identify them.
Thank god I had Devyn.
The fae gave me a look of disinterest, as if anything I had to say was a waste of his precious time. He finally shrugged after a moment of silence that had me convinced he planned to ignore me. “Things have been wretched since the king died, and the blight is starting to spread. It won’t be long before the other lands see the adverse effects of a kingless realm.”
“How many others has Ryker sent?” Devyn demanded, regaining the Silvermyst’s attention.
He gave a low laugh. “Wouldn’t you like to know. There is no fun in revealing all our secrets.”
Ice coated my veins. We weren’t safe anywhere. And no matter how far, how long, or how often we ran, it would never be enough. Time was an ally I didn’t have.
Devyn shot him a dark smile. “You want to have a little fun?”
I don’t know what silent command he gave his fae pets—a lift of a brow or a mental order—but they never acted without Devyn’s authority, so it was as much a shock to me as it was to the Silvermyst when Fury sunk his lethal fangs into the fae’s bicep.
Shadows swirled and gathered around the snake as it sucked out the very essence of the Silvermyst. The fae jerked in his chair, but the twin tails pulled tighter around his arms.
“You were saying?” Devyn prompted him, leaning on the hilt of his sword that was still embedded in the floor between the fae’s legs.
“Make it stop,” the Silvermyst begged in a voice that wasn’t human.
I didn’t know what it felt like to have your soul siphoned out of you by Wrath or Fury, but the panic in his eyes and the agony that contorted his features led me to believe it wasn’t a pleasant experience.
Belle dove behind me on the bed, hiding under the covers. I was seconds away from joining her under the sheets. My fingers instinctually touched the stone hanging at my neck, seeking its solace to calm my jackhammering heart.
“With pleasure,” Devyn said, and with one clean swipe of his sword, he slit the fae’s throat. Inky blood waterfalled down the column of the fae’s neck. Eventually, the only sound in the room was the plip, plop, plip of his blood hitting the carpet.
The world stopped. This was how those grotesque dark stains formed on the floors of every one-star motel across the country. I shuddered at the thought.
I lifted my gaze from the corpse, knowing it was seconds away from being incinerated into a blinding light—a fae’s way of destroying any evidence of their existence to mortals. I tried to keep the horror from my expression, but it was pointless to pretend what I had witnessed didn’t shake me to the core.
Killing, regardless of who or what they were, didn’t sit well with my stomach, but Devyn was trained for this. Things were different in the Second Moon. Their laws were not like ours, and Devyn had decided against sending a message back to my uncle. He’d been in the mood for bloodshed, for retribution. After nearly dying, Devyn must have felt as if there was a debt owed to him, and it was far from settled.
Too many loose threads dangled over my head, and I didn’t know how to untangle the mess. Too many people depended on me to not fail, to not screw this up—people I loved, people I’d never met. And the deeper I went into this world, the more dangerous it became for those around me.
My eyes lifted to Devyn’s, and the room exploded into a burst of white mixed with shadows. The glow temporarily impaired my vision, but the hissing of Wrath and Fury filled the small space. They devoured the Silvermyst’s soul before the light faded.
Nothing was without a price. Every decision I made or didn’t make had a ripple effect on the future. Could I live with myself if anything happened to Devyn because of me? My throat went dry at the thought.
One thing I knew for certain: sleep was out of the question.
Chapter Three
“Isn’t anyone else concerned with the fact that we just kidnapped, tortured, and killed a man?” I whispered over my cup, the steam billowing up from my latte. We were sitting at an outdoor cafe, sipping caffeinated beverages and eating breakfast. Surely, the fae gods would expect a payment, and I sent up a silent plea for forgiveness.
Devyn and Belle seemed unconcerned as they kept eating without pause.
“He wasn’t a man—not by mortal definitions,” Devyn said calmly. The expression on his handsome face indicated he was unfazed by what he had done mere hours ago. “He was a trained assassin. Do not forget that. He would have slit your throat or mine.”
I’d learned quite a bit about the fae gods during our long hours in the car. Devyn used the time to educate me on the ways of fae life. It was fascinating—the stories, the gods, the magic, the rules—like listening to an audiobook on a long road trip. Devyn’s voice was magnetic in the way he spoke of his homeland, and I found it easy to forget that these weren’t just stories, but truths and histories to another world.
My world.
I was intrigued by Goddess Rhiannon, the great queen who was moonlight triumphant—a beautiful, silver-haired maiden who rode a stunning white horse. The faes call upon her for courage in conflict, overcoming enemies, protection, and patience. I needed all of the above, so she seemed like the type of goddess I’d pray to if I believed in such things.