Yew Queen Trilogy

by Eve A Hunt

  Hekla wished they both were imagining this, but the shift felt real, incredibly, unbelievably real.

  Kaippa set Hekla on the ground, a funny grin on his blood-red lips and one lock of black hair hanging over his pale face. “Wheat girl, you are full of surprises.”

  But she wanted to stay in his arms, to feel his strength even though he was a murderer. He had saved her. She tried to speak, but the words came out as a growl and a squeak. Kaippa smiled and lifted her again. She dug her nose into the crook of his arm, not caring at the moment who he had been before this. Her racing blood wouldn’t let her choose the right move over the comfortable one.

  “Like dandelion puff,” Oliver said, playing with Hekla’s tail.

  I have a tail. Aaaahhh….

  “Will she be okay?” Coren asked Lucus. “She’ll switch back, right? Please tell me good things.”

  “She’ll change back,” he said, and Hekla breathed out a massive sigh. “I don’t know when, but she will.”

  Coren touched Hekla’s cold nose. “Damn it, Hekla. Did you know you were a shifter?” Coren didn’t sound angry, just completely freaked out for her.

  Hell no, she hadn’t known she was a shapeshifter! She would’ve told them!

  “Remember,” Lucus said, his voice gentle, “my presence as an alpha fae ignites the magical blood sleeping in mages and shifters. Because Hekla has been around me and my brothers, her powers are rising. It’s also likely that the Yew Bow increased the intensity of her awakening magic.”

  Coren pet Hekla’s snout, and it felt nice. She smelled different now, still like sugar, but also like herbs and maybe magic?

  “Does Hekla get some additional perk for this aside from becoming a freaking fox on occasion?” Coren asked. “And will she always shift into a fox, or can she become other creatures?”

  Hekla started and swallowed hard. What other horrible experiences would she have to live through? What if she shifted into a bug and was stepped on? Or maybe she could become a more useful creature like a lion, something better for the fight with the demon wyvern. A fox wasn’t going to help them much. She sighed and perked her ears to listen for answers.

  Kaippa looked Hekla over. “She’ll only turn into the fox. But she’ll grow faster and stronger. And she’ll live longer. Not as long as you, Coren, but longer than an average human.”

  It was too much for Hekla to process.

  Corliss watched the street like she worried the demon was on his way. Hekla really hoped the fae princess was just being paranoid. “I have heard that shifters are generally more resilient. Their rate of healing outpaces a human’s.”

  That was all good news at least.

  “Wasn’t there something about spells and their blood?” Coren asked.

  Lucus answered. “Fae can use shifter blood to cast spells.”

  Wait. That wasn’t comforting in the least. Hekla eyed Lucus and bared her fangs, enjoying the feel of those sharp teeth in her mouth.

  Coren came close, her gaze touching Hekla’s face. “Dude, you know he’s not going to bleed you for power.”

  How many more people’s lives would be flipped because of the Yew Bow? And why was this Coren’s fate? Hekla's friend had always been so kind to everyone. And what was the point of revealing the supernatural to the world?

  Hekla jumped into Coren’s arms and set her nose against her friend’s neck. The shock was wearing off, and she was done being in Kaippa’s arms.

  Kaippa was snickering. “The fox is a fox.”

  Coren glared. “Why are you here anyway?”

  “To save your asses, as usual.”

  Hekla had to admit that he did seem to have a habit of filling the role of reluctant savior. He’d caught Oliver at the unseelie prison break not so long ago, and he’d helped Coren when she’d portaled them out of the castle.

  “Thank you.” Coren seemed to struggle to say the words.

  Another SUV drove down the street, and a question popped into Hekla’s mind. Had that been Evan who’d almost run her over? What if he’d seen how incredibly fast Kaippa was? They didn’t need to give Dain, Evan, Nancy, and company more suspicious tales to spread.

  Coren was still murmuring thanks. “I don’t get you, Kaippa. You halfway murder Titus, then you save Hekla. Are you a good guy or a bad one?”

  “Don’t shove me into a category, Coren. You’d be wise to refrain from labeling your mate here as well. You know the darkness in you. It is in all of us supernatural beings. We so-called immortals.”

  The group went back inside Titus’s gym, and everyone but Coren and Hekla began to clean up. Hekla was still shaking, and Coren was kind enough to keep a nice hold on her.

  “I know you’re scared shitless,” Coren whispered, warming Hekla’s chilled soul. “But we’ll get through this. You’re still you.”

  It was nice of her to say, but what did she know? Hekla squeezed her eyes shut and tried to feel her way back to being human.

  Lucus and Corliss magicked their vines back into the earth while Sebastian answered Oliver’s one million questions about Hekla. The smoke had cleared, but the place still reeked of burned plastic, and the scent of magic cascaded across Hekla’s face as the air conditioner switched on. Coren set Hekla down and went to the thermostat to shut it off. The nights were finally cool enough to let that go. Hekla trotted behind her, finally not shaking so hard, but still clingy. Why couldn’t she change back? How long would she be trapped in this body?

  There was a knock on the locked gym door.

  Lucus lifted his chin and blinked. “It’s Baccio and Aurelio.”

  Coren let them in, the door creaking more than it had before she’d blown the heck out of the place with that arrow. “Is Titus okay?”

  Both of them were pale, Baccio’s mouth a straight line and Aurelio’s hair askew as if he’d run his hands through it repeatedly.

  “Titus is fine, but the twisted curse…” Aurelio’s light eyes flickered with fear. “The demon. We think it’s under your house. We moved Titus to Ami’s home.”

  A bitter taste touched Hekla’s tongue, and she swallowed.

  Coren sighed. “Okay. Well, let’s see if I can rock this lightning arrow again and end this shit show.”

  12 Coren

  Lucus behind me on my bike, I zipped down Hillsboro behind the Volvo, which Aurelio was driving. Hekla’s white-furred face appeared in the back window beside Kaippa’s head. My heart cinched. Aurelio had been practicing driving with Hekla, and damn if the fae didn’t pick stuff up quickly.

  When we turned the corner and reached my street, rumbling shook the starlit road, and the motorcycle careened toward the curb. I gripped the handlebars and tried to steer us, but the ground unfolded in front of us like origami made of pavement. I shrieked as we were thrown onto the road. My face hit the street, grit tearing my cheek and lip. Pain burned along my entire right side.

  The Volvo was on its side, spinning to a stop as a dark shape rose from the broken road, slow and absolutely enormous. Was everyone okay? My heartbeat echoed in my ears as I tried to get eyes on everyone.

  That metallic millipede odor wafted through the cool air, and I gagged, trying to push myself to standing as the fae brothers emerged from the car and took off into the air.

  Lucus’s wings spread wide, blocking out the moon, the stars, and the yellow streetlight. Light pulsing around him and his brothers, they directed thick, woody vines that whipped around the demon’s face. One vine caught a sword-length tooth and was immediately cut off, falling to the ground to smash the front of the Volvo.

  Corliss, pale hair hanging over her face, grabbed Sebastian’s bleeding arm to help him from the car. He reached down for Oliver, whose shrieks were barely audible over the cracking earth and the thunderous rumble in the demon dragon’s throat. Hekla bounded from the wreck and leapt onto a new rise of ground like she was ready to fight.

  “Get back, Hekla!” Fear was a second demon, writhing in my chest. “Please!” She was a tiny, furry t
hing. She had to get the hell out of here.

  I took the Yew Bow from my back, praying to all that was holy that the weapon was undamaged. Sliding the magestone from my jacket pocket, I pulled the bow taut. The arrow of lightning appeared. Sizzling with power, its tip glowed a brighter purple than the shaft as I aimed at the demon’s head and let the arrow fly. The shot careened into the demon’s side, and the beast roared. I’d injured it maybe, but I’d missed its head, the mark I had to hit to end this thing. Lifting the bow and drawing the magestone back, I tried to stop shaking and aim.

  Baccio flew between me and my target, vines twisting and curling. The demon surged toward him, and one dragon leg lifted from the hole it had created. Baccio flew backward with a heavy wingbeat, and he was out of reach.

  Kaippa flew among them, slashing out with his claw-tipped wings to slice the demon’s glittering, gray scales. He could see the beast, obviously. Was that because I’d hit the wyvern with the Yew Bow’s arrow and broken the glamour?

  I focused on the creature’s glistening right eye, but Aurelio’s arm broke my line of sight. The leaves of his wings shuffled as he swooped low to lash vines around the dragon’s leg. Kaippa slashed the beast’s leg with one of his wing claws and ripped a chunk from the back of the demon’s head. Teeth bared, Hekla jumped at the creature’s leg. So she could see it too.

  My stomach dropped as she dug into the demon’s flesh and the beast flung her into the neighbor’s yard.

  My fingers gripped the magestone, my knuckles cracking and magic snapping around me.

  It was too dark. I couldn’t see if she was moving.

  I took aim, but my body seized up. Lucus glanced at me. His emerald eyes somehow sent a zing of strength. The sensation straightened my back and put fire in my veins.

  I loosed another lightning arrow.

  My magic crackled, and the demon screamed as the arrow dashed its side. I dropped the Bow to put my hands over my ears. Corliss had joined the other fae in the sky, her ivy wings fluttering as she flew one way and then the other. Sebastian and Oliver crouched beside the car. Sebastian held his hands over his son’s ears.

  The demon thrashed its great head and struck Aurelio and Baccio.

  A stream of fire caught both fae brothers as they fell to the ground. Their wings smoking, broken, and bent, they lay motionless on the street.

  My hands tingled and went numb.

  Aurelio and Baccio were gone. Just like that. Gone.

  Lucus’s mouth opened in a raging shout. The trees around the street lifted their roots and grabbed for the demon.

  My ears rang as the creature blew rippling fire into the trees. The trees shrank back, limbs ablaze as Lucus and Kaippa flew closer to the beast. Using my lift spell to rise into the air, I blasted pulses of lightning toward the demon, hoping to distract it so Lucus and Kaippa could attack. As my magic exploded against the creature’s skull, fire burst from the demon’s maw, barely missing Lucus as he soared above its head. I wished my magic could simply kill the thing, but Lucus had told me only the Yew Bow would bring it down for good.

  The demon extended its tucked wings, so much like Kaippa’s, and a clawed tip caught Corliss in the chest.

  She dropped like a stone. Dead before she hit the ground.

  Sebastian tucked Oliver behind the Volvo, then used his lifting spell to rise into the air on billowing amethyst clouds. Together, we cast lightning across the demon’s body and face. Our combined blasts shunted a tooth like a scimitar from the creature’s mouth. The fang drove down and stabbed the earth. Black blood poured from the demon’s neck, but it kept fighting, untouched by pain, unhindered by injury.

  It was unbeatable.

  “Use the Bow again!” Sebastian’s face was ruddy and sweating as he cast a spinning cloud flashing with thunder and light.

  I released my lift spell and ran to where I’d dropped the Yew Bow, my blood frigid. I pushed my mind away from the horror we would discover when this was over. If we lived to see it.

  Taking aim, I ignored a loud grunt from Sebastian and a blur of light, then I drew the magestone back. Pleaseworkpleaseworkpleasework. I loosed a blazing arrow.

  The magic flashed against his wing. Damn! I’d missed again! Thunder from my magic shook the ground as the arrow’s power exploded outward, only tearing a rip in the beast’s side.

  The demon roared, leapt high, then dove into its hole. It disappeared into the ground beside a fallen Sebastian. My hands shook. He must have been hit when I was focused on raising the arrow.

  The Binder was gray as a tombstone. Dead.

  The demon wyvern had slain Corliss, Aurelio, Baccio, and Sebastian. All of them were dead. I couldn’t wrap my mind around it.

  Cries and shouts from neighbors rose.

  “I saw it!”

  “What is this?”

  The chaotic mess of questions and exclamations grew louder as sirens tore at the night.

  I slung the Yew Bow on my back and raced to Hekla. She was human again, her limbs splayed awkwardly on the ground. Her skin showed through a long rip in her shirt, and blood stained one leg of her trousers. Holding my breath, I set a hand against her bloodied cheek.

  “Is she…” Kaippa had landed beside me. All humor had been erased from his features.

  “Hekla?”

  13 Coren

  I exhaled a breath that felt like glass in my throat. “She’s warm. She’s alive.”

  Her chest rose and fell, and I put a hand on the pulse faintly beating under her jaw. The beating grew stronger, and Hekla opened her eyes.

  A slew of police cars and ambulances sped down the street.

  “What happened?” Hekla asked. “Am I still…you know?” She patted herself down.

  Kaippa knelt, his hand on his knee and the Mage Duke’s ring still on his finger. “Too bad.” His eyebrow lifted. “I liked your wild side.”

  I pressed a quick kiss to Hekla’s cheek, then stood, knowing what I had to turn around and see. “Stay here and rest. I’ll be right back.”

  Hekla began asking Kaippa questions as I walked, body numb, toward Lucus. Sitting at his brothers’ feet, he held Oliver. Tears streamed down both of their faces, rivers of silver that cracked my heart open.

  The neighbors and emergency personnel were closing in. They couldn’t get their hands on these bodies, or on us either.

  I shut my eyes, envisioned the lot of us one by one, then portaled us to the only place the humans wouldn’t be able to follow.

  With a crash of bright magic, we were in the courtyard of my ancestor’s cursed castle.

  I put my hands on Lucus’s shoulders. His body moved with quiet sobs as I kissed the crown of his head, his black horns shimmering into view at the sides of my face. His wings materialized and curled around his body like he was physically wounded.

  And I knew that, truly, he was.

  “Let me take Oliver.” I kept my voice quiet.

  Lucus shifted his wing to the side and handed Sebastian’s son up to me.

  “Oliver. We’re here for you.” I tucked his head against me and held him close, my cracked heart falling to pieces over and over again. He shuddered, his tears going quiet, which actually worried me more.

  Kaippa moved Sebastian’s body under one of the trees in the center of the cobblestone courtyard. He then took Corliss’s body and set her beside him.

  I couldn’t believe they were dead. All of them.

  Watching Lucus’s bloodstained fingers touch Aurelio’s boot and hearing his whispered words, I just stood there. Not talking. Just holding Oliver and trying to remember to breathe.

  By the time Hekla was strong enough to walk over to me, the sunrise was painting the sky in watery shades of red. I didn’t know how long I’d been standing there, how long Lucus had been kneeling at the feet of his dead brothers. Little Oliver was asleep against my chest, his breathing erratic like he was having a nightmare.

  “I wish it had been me instead of Sebastian,” I said. “Oliver doesn’t deser
ve any of this.”

  Hekla took the boy from me, her throat moving in a swallow and blood crusted at the sides of her mouth. “I know, Coren. I know. Where can I lay him down?”

  Lucus stood slowly. His wings dragged the ground like he couldn’t bear to lift them. “I will show you.” Without another word, he led us into the castle.

  The magicked sconces flickered to life, their yellow hue too bright for the pall that hung on our shoulders. We turned a few corners and passed the casting chamber and several more closed doors before reaching a small room with two large, curtained beds. Hekla laid Oliver down on the one closest to the door and tucked his sleeping form under the thick, royal blue duvet. The rims of the boy’s eyelids were red from crying, and the morning sun through the high window showed the dried tears on his little cheeks.

  I remembered a recipe for a spell that would keep him asleep for a few hours, so I excused myself to visit the casting chamber. In the dim light of the chamber, I removed a handful of dried sage, lavender, and a bit of valerian root. Their scents in my nose, I walked on numb feet back to Oliver’s temporary room.

  Lucus and Hekla watched in silence as I crushed the herbs between my palms and recited the spell three times.

  “To rest, to escape, to peace.”

  I went around the bed to the side Oliver had rolled to and spread the crushed herbs around him in a rough circle. The Yew Bow, still in place on my back, hummed, and the spell came to life with a locking, secure type of sensation between my eyebrows.

  “Rest, little guy. I hope life looks better by the time you’re awake again.” Maybe by then we’d have a plan on how to deal with this demon.

  14 Coren

  On our way back to the courtyard, I took Lucus’s hand. He let me curl my fingers around his, but he didn’t seem able to look at me yet, to let me see his pain. And that was just fine. We all knew that we had little to no time for mourning, that we had to chase down the demon and finish this thing before the Mage Duke showed up and we had two enemies instead of one to fight, but for now, Lucus could pause, retreat, and come to grips with this incredible loss as best he could.