Last time I had been running there for my life. Kheelan tucked my ‘don’t look here’ charm that covered just my bow and quiver and sent me on a mad chase with me as the bunny and well-trained Light Fae from his sire’s army as the wolves. I hadn’t forgiven Kheelan for the betrayal, although I had done my best to protect him because he did it for the only reason I could understand, saving his brother.
I never thought I’d be here again. My boss at the restaurant across the street fired me for walking off in the middle of a shift, which had been to avoid the Light Fae that ended up capturing me anyway. Problem was that I didn’t know any other portal into Faerie other than the one in the woods. I’d been knocked out the first time when the Light Fae took me through here and to their encampment inside Faerie, but I had been awake and opened the portal back to the human realm myself the second time, after instructions relayed by the twins.
Matthew’s memory had come in handy when he was able to remember the words, motions and where to stand to open the door between the realms from watching Dain when he had taken them through with him, and then all I had needed was my snowflake to provide the key.
Relying on the experienced, magical males that had come to Faerie to supposedly rescue me was as palatable as eating the manure Orin fed the twins and twice as foul after Dain’s choice word.
Checkmate?
I hated games but I hated losing more than playing so the gauntlet that Dain had thrown down was going to be picked up. I trained and prepared for this day. I was back, this time on my own terms, and I was ready as I ever would be to take on Faerie.
It didn’t matter if my biological father was a Dark Elf or really the boogie monster. I would find him for my mother and bring about the justice he had evaded for so long. Leaving me before I even knew him wasn’t the issue. I wanted to know how he could leave my mother to her suffering if there existed even an iota of hope that he could relieve it.
A cure might not be possible since she had been born with the defective genes, but would Fae magical healing keep the worst of her symptoms at bay? Would she be able to stay out of a wheelchair? Might she live to dance at my wedding some day?
I cautiously crossed the street from the lights surrounding my old place of employment and headed towards the dark path, gritting my teeth at the irony. Perhaps the Fae glamoured this place to make humans feel fear on purpose, another layer to hide the portal to their realm.
The hard rubber tires of my suitcase rattled in the night until I went off road, muffling the wheels in the grass. There would be time enough for keeping quiet when I had crossed over, but here I had little to worry I would be harmed. The monsters in the dark now included me.
“Evie-baby?”
I halted, quickly scanning the area and picking up my pace when I saw nothing. Why the hell was I hearing Matthew’s voice? He was at home, probably debating whether he should tell his brother about my note or destroy it as I’d asked. I knew he wouldn’t keep it from Jackson, just as I knew that Jackson would be the one to burn it to ash. The only thing I had dreaded but hoped to avoid with the note was the twins following me here.
Please let me be hearing things. I was way behind schedule and if the twins caught me, then the whole plan was going to implode. Fucking Eloden could be turned into a costly choice.
Damn that sexy fox and whatever made me into a wanton ninny every time one of my Marks touched me. I was well aware that I’d fucked two of my Marks within the last twenty-four hours and enjoyed it, despite such behaviour being contrary to my usual nature and the fact that I had supposedly left them all behind.
Although the blame still lay with me, something else was going on, possibly magic related. I was more convinced that there was a spell involved with every Mark that I fucked. The lust I felt wasn’t natural. It only got hotter despite the best sex I could imagine. I couldn’t get any satisfaction.
“Evie-baby, stop. It’s dark down there.”
That was not another voice in my head. I thought about responding to Jackson, trying to reason with him if the letter hadn’t been enough.
I ran.
“Eve!” Jackson screamed. There was so much fear in his voice I wanted to stop and look for the danger, but the twins were fast and they ran almost daily for football practice. My only chance at beating them was to never stop.
How long had they waited here, hoping to catch me? I should have been gone hours ago. Why didn’t they give up?
“Take us,” Matthew begged.
My frozen heart made an ominous crack. I knew that tone, the one that said ‘don’t leave us’ as twin boys stood in stuffy suit jackets by their mother’s memorial and our parents had one of their rare arguments a few feet away in the hallway with the funeral hall director presiding.
It had been our first time together as a family recognizing their mother’s death anniversary. The twin’s father should have known any talk of the inevitable future would have set my mother off, especially as she was a ‘dig a hole and stick me in it’ or ‘burn me up and scatter my ashes somewhere’ kind of no-nonsense person. I would have been afraid to mention dying at all. He was a doer and a planner, however, and our newly assembled family was still getting to know each other’s quirks.
The boys were raw over the loss of their biological mother and my mother was yelling and making enough of a scene to break their little hearts all over again, terrified their new stepsister and stepmother would leave them, too. Little did they understand that my mother was arguing against any sort of prolonged loss, insisting that my stepfather abandon her in a nursing home -his words- when she could no longer wipe her own ass -her words- and buy some discount plot if he wanted to plan ahead.
There would be no memorial to visit and she forbid the funeral hall director to even speak of planting trees or roses or anything else that would be a reminder and marker of her end. The finish was the ending. I understood my mother even at that age, although I silently willed my stepfather to win the argument.
“Damn it,” I muttered, coming to a sudden halt. I dropped my luggage. Two pairs of grown hands grabbed my body tight like I was their precious football and the other team was hot on their heels.
“Got you,” ringed in unison. The boys hadn’t been able to stop their momentum, picking me up and carrying me between them a couple feet before they came to a unified halt.
“Give her to me,” Jackson demanded.
“No, I’ll take her. She wrote the letter to me,” Matthew insisted.
“The letter that said don’t tell Jackson and don’t come after me?” I said inserting my annoyed opinion. I wiggled in their hands, but these boys didn’t suffer from dropsie, star freaking athletes.
“We didn’t tell Dain,” Jackson said, sounding hurt.
Oh boy, I had stomped his tender adolescent feelings and the worst part was I knew that was going to happen when I wrote the letter but I had done it anyway, selfishly.
“I was trying to protect you both,” I excused.
“I trust you,” Matthew recited in falsetto. “Nice way to demonstrate trust by running away in the middle of the night with a goodbye forever note. I should have known that movies and popcorn was suspicious after weeks of being too busy for us.”
“Put me down,” I ordered. I would face them for these accusations.
“Don’t think you can escape us,” Jackson said, practically breathing down the back of my neck.
Where did he learn that from, Villains 101? I nearly laughed out loud but his feelings had already been hurt. Besides, with a shiver, I wondered if he had picked it up from Dain.
I was put back on my feet and immediately subject to the twin sandwich a few feet from the city sidewalk and its working streetlights. We were still bathed in gloom, hidden enough from sight, especially if I had been able to cast a ‘don’t look here.’ Acquiring some basic magic knowledge other than removing and putting on my own glamour was at the top of my ‘to do’ list.
“Where’s the note,” I demanded.
Matthew handed it over, carefully folded instead of the crumpled mess I had expected. He must have reined Jackson in somehow. I took the thick piece of paper I had stolen from my stepfather’s office and quickly ripped it up into itty bitty pieces of confetti that I scattered to the night.
“Your evidence is gone now. I’ll be leaving alone and you can pick me up in three days,” I succinctly explained my offer.
“We’re coming,” Jackson counter offered. It was more of a statement of facts.
They ought to know better than to try to crack a hard-case like me. “You’ll hold me back,” I said, not caring if Jackson’s feelings were hurt. Better emotional pain than physical injury or death. “Neither of you has a drop of magic or glamour to hide in Faerie,” I added when Matthew took a deep breath to launch into his bargaining. He was way too good at wheedling things from me. “I’ve been practicing my archery but both of you are without weapons or enough familiarity using them to protect yourselves, forget me,” I said, and then I put the final nail in the coffin. “You guys will get me and yourselves killed.”
“Did you really think we were practicing for football since you came back from Faerie looking all dark and pissed off?” Matthew said, sounding more angry than hurt.
I swallowed back my surprise, not letting it into my voice. “I’m always dark and pissed off. It’s my thing,” I snarked back.
“They hurt you,” Jackson declared. “Orin promised us that he would keep you safe if we followed him.”
Betrayed by the magical sparkles pony? I knew exactly how that burned, and as for how it felt to be touched by Orin before Dain ruined it and showed my real worth to all of them? I preferred to keep that to myself.
“We’re packed,” Matthew said.
“And armed,” Jackson added.
“With what? Bows from Walmart? Last time we were in Faerie there was a battle with an army and nobody was shopping from a discount armoury.” I said, knowing I was going to have to crush them if I wanted to get away.
“Show her,” Jackson told Matthew.
I got held back against Jackson’s hard chest while his twin loaded a crossbow that was a significant upgrade from the practice weapons we had before, loading and aiming at a tree I could barely see in the dark with my human vision. The bolt impaled the target tree with a thunderous impact I could never achieve with my arm alone, leaves shaking from some of the upper branches. Damn, I think that thing might even pierce Fae armour.
“And the swords, too,” Matthew said, a bit of excitement escaping from him.
He was always the first to rush into my room and show me his latest A+ paper or to cry over the girl that threw his love note back at him, at least until their voices cracked and he became a little more private and realized his stepsister was kind of a girl, too.
“Sit on the ground with your legs crossed and hands in your lap,” Jackson told me.
I looked over my shoulder to shoot him an eye-rolling refusal but the look he gave me shocked me into compliance. When had Jackson gotten this bossy and had the confidence to pull it off?
“The ground is dirty,” I muttered, sitting down.
“They don’t have washing machines in Faerie,” Matthew cheerfully informed me instead of pointing out the futility of complaining about the ground containing dirt.
“I’ve already been introduced to the lake method of washing clothes in Faerie,” I retorted before I could think better of it.
Nothing like telling my brothers I had stripped naked and washed my clothes in the lagoon while they’d been sleeping. They had trust issues with Orin now? The first dude that slept with their sister would always be persona non grata no matter how much the twins teased me to get myself laid.
Jackson gave me a probing glance before he heaved a camping sized backpack off and unsheathed a much bigger sword from his back than I carried. He held it two handed and proceeded to try to chop his twin’s head off.
“Matthew!” I shouted, starting to get up.
“Sit down,” Matthew ordered, meeting his brother’s strike with a clanging parry powered from the side and upwards. Shockingly, Matthew seemed to win that clash, quickly changing his swing back to attack, speed almost on par with my own with a sword half that weight.
“Matthew?” I queried, sitting back down. Where was my sweetkins?
The harsh bark of laughter from Matthew had me looking twice to make sure I hadn’t mixed up the twins. They were identical, although I had plenty of experience. I thought I knew the soft padding of Matthew’s footsteps and the quiet snore of Jackson’s sleep.
“We dropped out of school and got the best instructors,” Jackson explained, overpowering Matthew’s backhanded swing.
“Those are sharp,” I said, just stopping myself from warning them not to poke an eye out like a paranoid mother. Then, I heard Jackson’s words and what they implied. “You’re dropouts? What did your dad say? School is important,” I lectured them.
“Says the queen of dropouts,” Matthew said.
My mother had called me that in front of them, so there was a little sting attached to it. One of our biggest fights was when I left high school unfinished. My mother thought I was giving up. She refused to see I was focusing on more important things.
Matthew suddenly countered Jackson’s forward thrust with a sideways blow and twist that put his sword very close to Jackson’s unguarded neck.
“Geezus, don’t kill each other!” I told them with an undignified, paranoid shout. No one else was here to witness me helicoptering the twins.
“Truce,” Jackson said.
“Truce,” Matthew agreed.
I scrambled to stand. “Sit,” Jackson ordered, pointing the business end of the sword at me.
I closed my eyes and felt for my snowflake, whispering my rhyme and dropping my glamour. Almost faster than the twins would be able to see, I fingered Jackson’s sword to the side and held one of my daggers over his heart.
Matthew whistled. “Seems money can’t buy everything, Jack. Our instructor would have paid to teach someone with her speed.”
“She doesn’t need a professional instructor to teach her regulation play,” Jackson commented, moving my dagger from over his heart to his groin. “She needs brothers to teach her all the dirty tricks that are going to keep her alive in Faerie.” He looked down at my eyes and smiled. “Cut the inside of the thigh and deep to get the femoral artery, or if you really hate the fellow, feel free to castrate the bastard.”
I removed my dagger, resheathing it while I gave Jackson a more assessing lookover. Maybe something had changed in my brothers that Dain had seen when he agreed to take them over to Faerie for my rescue. I had been too busy to notice it until now.
“How did you get this past the parental units?” I asked.
“Gap year,” Matthew answered. “Dad paid for all the crash instruction and weapons training. Money does buy certain things and we’re rich, spoiled kids with short attention spans looking for the next thrill,” he explained with a shrug.
Devious. Matthew was absolutely the more calculating and wily of the twins, which meant the instructors had no chance against his lies, and even his father may have fallen for his tricks. I wondered how the twins had framed the gap year for their father. Jackson would have needed to be involved as well, something as important as school wouldn’t be a decision their father would let Matthew decide alone.
They had hidden this from me and made secret plans, figuring out on their own that I was preparing to go to Faerie. The twins weren’t stupid or lazy. I had been too distracted with my own worries to see what they had been up to while I kept my distance.
“I planned to be gone for weeks,” I admitted, looking at their supplies compared to mine. My guitar bag and suitcase on wheels looked lame next to their gear. It was like we had packed for two different destinations entirely. “And what about Ai Lung and Ms. Chang?”
“Dad’s going to take care of everything,” Jackson assured me. “
He thinks we’re doing a survivalist trip.”
My mother never would have bought that excuse. She heckled me about running in the ravine woods, her spidey sense for bullshit fine tuned. My stepfather was naive in comparison. I was also totally busted if he visited the Changs and saw where I had been spending my free time. The only good thing about the situation was my stepfather’s innate sense of responsibility and honour would ensure the Changs were well cared for in my absence.
“Let us go with you for a few days only, Evie-baby. We’ll get the lay of the land and have a better idea of what we’ll need for an extended trip,” Matthew suggested, proposing new terms.
It was a smart plan, not an all or nothing that could end in splendid failure. If only I didn’t have over half a dozen Marks that would likely be on my tail within hours.
“There’s a problem with that plan and it has wings and breathes fire,” I said. Did they even know that Falin was a dragon? I’m sure it would tickle their fantasy sides but a real dragon was no game.
“Dain breathes fire?” Jackson asked, way too nonchalant.
“No,” I said, then thought about it. “Well, maybe, but that’s not who I am talking about. Falin transforms into a dragon without his glamour. The one with the scruffy, dark hair and green eyes,” I said. Matthew nodded. “Face pierced by half a pound of metal?” I added. Jackson nodded. “A fire-breathing dragon,” I clarified, because nobody looked worried.
“They’re Fae,” Jackson said to my astonished look.
I closed my mouth, not having realized it was open until I went to talk again. Clearing my throat for good measure, I moved onto revealing the real problem.
“The fire breathing dragon was in our house last night and he told me to go back to the apartment. I kind of didn’t go or leave a note.”
“You could have texted Falin. He has one of those gold, oversized iphones in a clear case with coating that makes the whole thing shine for a mile away. Not really inconspicuous, but who would suspect he is a Fae, or even actually a dragon? That’s hilarious. He has a better sense of humour than I realized,” Matthew said, chuckling.
Falling Into Faerie After Page 9