by J. L. Weil
“What is it?” I asked, absorbed by its enchanting beauty.
Devyn watched me intently as I examined the sphere. “It is a piece of light from the Second Moon.”
“Can I touch it?” My free hand was already moving, and when he didn’t object, I let my fingers graze the soft light. The surface was smooth and radiated a cool, calming effect. Mesmerized, I pressed my palm to the center so my fingers spread out. I couldn’t explain the texture. It wasn’t solid, but it wasn’t liquid either. It definitely wasn’t something of this world. “How did it get here?” I asked, pulling my hand away.
“We made it,” he murmured, drawing my eyes to him.
“How?”
“Our energies conjured it.” He leaned toward me, and something in his gaze caught my breath. Those dark green eyes flicked to my lips for one steamy, long glance that had my blood racing.
“Your souls conjured the light,” Belle corrected. “It will show you the truth about what your soul desires, but you have to be willing to see it.”
I had completely forgotten she was watching us, but her voice was so quiet, it hadn’t disrupted the sudden yearning I felt. What about our souls? I was too engrossed in Devyn to keep my mind focused on what Belle was saying.
Time seemed to stop. Nothing moved. Nothing sounded. Nothing mattered but the matching beats of our hearts. His eyes bore into mine with an intense heat.
I was in love with him.
How could I not be?
And I wanted nothing more than to kiss him. The hand around my wrist loosened as I rose up on my toes with one thought in my mind—Devyn’s mouth.
“Is this about to get kinky? Should I close my eyes? Plug my ears? Leave the room?” Belle’s high voice interrupted us.
Unable to help myself, I grinned against Devyn’s lips. “So, is this about to get kinky?” I whispered, taking his lower lip in between my teeth.
He stepped back, rubbing a hand on the back of his neck. “Karina,” he said, his eyes hardening.
Ooookay. What gives? The last thing I wanted was to deal with this hot and cold thing with Devyn again, but I couldn’t help but wonder if it had something to do with Belle. He only said my name when I was in trouble.
“All work and no play makes the Sin Eater a dull boy,” the pixie sang, puttering around the room.
Devyn glared, his eyes darting as he followed Belle’s sporadic flying. “I think it’s time for a break.”
“Sure,” I agreed, handing my blade over and watching as he stalked out of the room, leaving me perplexed. Would I ever fully understand him?
“What crawled into his pants and bit him on the ass?” Belle asked, having landed on my shoulder.
I was pretty sure I knew, and her bite was like a bee sting. What about the pixie riled Devyn up so much? “Take your pick,” I muttered. “He’s been moodier than normal.”
“Are you sure? I just figured he was always like this.”
Not with me. “No, something is bothering him.” And I wanted to know what it was, but before I got the chance to go after him, Belle hovered so close to my face that I went cross-eyed for a moment.
“My turn,” the pixie announced with excitement.
“Your turn for what?” I asked, my gaze narrowing. What was she up to now?
“The Shaman isn’t the only one with mad skills.” She did a figure eight in the air as if that was supposed to impress me.
“Is that so?” I couldn’t help myself. I was intrigued. The pixie fascinated me. Maybe it was because she reminded me of my childhood obsession with faeries. Who as a little girl didn’t want wings and a sparkly wand that glittered?
“It would be good for you to train with someone who has magic.”
I couldn’t argue with that. My control wasn’t always the greatest. “Sure. Why not.”
“In your fox form,” she said, landing on the kitchen island.
Was this a wise idea? I didn’t see how it could possibly hurt, and I thoroughly enjoyed shifting when I wasn’t being hunted, but then I remembered Belle’s warning about the fox and how I lost pieces of myself when I shifted. It was a conundrum. I had no choice but to embrace the fox. There was no other way to save my mom, and I was just going to have to deal with the consequences.
I let the fox take over and shifted, shaking out my fur as I adjusted to being on four legs.
“You look like a princess now. I’ve never seen a Kitsune with such pure white coloring. It is magical.” She tugged on each of my tails, and I turned around to snap at her, baring my teeth in warning.
“Don’t touch the merchandise.”
“Yep. There you go ruining the royal illusion the moment you speak. We’re going to have to work on your etiquette,” she replied. I didn’t even question her ability to hear my projections. It seemed like something I could do with everyone, and like most of my abilities, it was unstable.
I let out another low growl. “Keep it up and I might eat you.”
“Ha! I bet you haven’t killed a single life as a fox. You don’t have it in you.”
“That’s what you think!”
She shot up in the air, her wings beating rapidly. “I’m surprised he let you be alone with me.”
“Devyn? He isn’t my jailor.”
Belle let out a snort. “Nope, just mine.”
“He’ll come around.”
She pursed her lips as if she didn’t believe me. “Three tails. Not bad for a Kitsune with no training. What abilities do you have?”
“Some kind of magnetic storm and fire”.
Her eyes brightened up. “Well, those sound fun.”
“As long as I’m not hurting anyone or setting things on fire.”
Belle dropped to the floor in front of me. “You’ve had a rough go. I’ve seen your struggles, and I know how important this is to you. And yet the fight has barely begun. You must be ready, Karina, for the road ahead is long and winding, full of twists and surprises.”
I tipped my nose down. “Well, that sucks. I was really hoping you would give me something cheerful to hold onto.”
“You already have that—the Shaman.” Her head angled to the side. “You have feelings for him.”
“Is that a problem?”
“Some might say so, but it makes no difference to me. Although … it does make me question your taste in guys.”
“He keeps a wall up with me. It is frustrating, but I don’t know how to break it down.”
She nodded. “He is protecting you and can’t help but be distant to keep you safe both physically and emotionally, is in his genetic makeup. The bond between a Kitsune and Shaman is formed immediately at conception.”
I never thought I would hear her say something positive about Devyn. It just proved she didn’t dislike him as much as she pretended. “Is it true I’m expected to eventually marry someone with royal blood?”
Her wings relaxed behind her back. “Assuming you take the throne, yes, but Devyn will remain with you always.”
“It isn’t the same.”
“No, I imagine it isn’t.”
I hadn’t expected her to reply, momentarily forgetting my thoughts weren’t private.
“Sorry, I’ve seen this conversation between us many times in different scenarios, but the questions were always the same. Your thoughts are private when you want them to be. It is you who controls who you let in,” she said.
That gave me a lot to think on—maybe too much. It was hard enough wrapping my head around Belle’s ability to see the future, but having already seen this very moment was freaky. It made me wonder if her life was always predictable. Where was the fun in that? Although these days, I could use a bit of predictability.
“Let me show you.” Her body started to glow, an aqua outline surrounding her, and before I could object, she placed a hand on my nose. A feeling of weightlessness overcame me.
And suddenly, I was no longer in the house.
I stood in front of what had once been a beautiful, ornate gate
that now hung crooked by a single hinge attached to a stone wall. The wall was chipped and missing chunks of rock but went on for as far as my Ktisune eyes could see in either direction. Beyond the gate, a path seemingly made of gold bars set into the ground led up to a four-tiered structure. There had been gold statues framing the doorway, but the heads were missing as if they had been blown off.
Something heavy weighed my head down, and I reached up, my fingers touching the cool metal of a crown.
My mind knew this was a vision that Belle was showing me—the future, a crappy version of the future. I could only guess this was Katsura from what I had heard of the golden city—my kingdom. It was far from the image I had dreamed up.
What happened?
Had there been a war?
Was this a prophecy of my failure?
As I walked, my feet crunched on debris, and … oh my god … is that …
Bones.
Vaguely, a part of me realized I had stopped breathing, but the other half didn’t really care. I was in shock. This couldn’t be my future. Blood. Death. Ruin. I refused to believe it. If I failed, then my mom died. Devyn died. The Second Moon died.
The city of gold was a city of ruins, and in the center of it was me, standing in a sea of destruction, tears streaming down my face and pain clamping down on my heart. Bodies littered the ground, and I swore I could hear their cries for help, chants of my name, and the clash of war.
A strand of moonlight broke through the black sky and beamed onto a path in front of me. I stopped walking and watched as a glimmer of light shimmered toward me. As it got closer, I recognized the iridescent wings and sparkly glow. It was a pixie, and my first thought was Belle, but it didn’t take me long to see I was wrong. This pixie had long white hair tinted with hues of blue, not bright red like Belle’s, although, she was just as dainty.
“Hello, Karina Lang.”
“Hello,” I replied, my voice echoing over the emptiness of the dead land.
“You shouldn’t be here, Princess,” she said.
No shit Sherlock. Tell me something I didn’t know. “I’m not really here,” I replied, stating what I assumed she knew.
Her wings fluttered rapidly, keeping her suspended in the air. “No, you’re not, which can only mean one of my sisters has found you. There are those of us here who wait for your arrival, who wait to see what choice you will make next, for each path you take forges a new future for Katsura and the Second Moon.”
“How do I know which decisions are the right ones?” I desperately wanted someone to tell me what to do for fear of making mistakes that would cause death.
Moonlight clung to her wings, bathing them in silver. “You must trust your instincts and let your heart guide you. Regardless of the visions we’re given, time is a finicky thing. There never seems to be enough of it, and yet often it moves too fast.”
Great. That was helpful.
She gave me a smile that did little to make me feel any less shitty. “Don’t look so sullen. It isn’t as hard as it sounds. Time is the key to your future.”
“And it’s the one thing I’m running out of.” I exhaled.
“Don’t be so sure. Now you need to go. The Shaman is searching for you.” She touched the bridge of my nose, just as Belle had done with the palm of her hand.
The vision surrounding me dissolved as the den came back into focus. My eyes stared at the rich, chocolate furniture and the warm coconut walls. I wasn’t in the middle of a barren battlefield. The ground wasn’t littered with the bones of dead fae.
Belle had shown me a vision of the future.
I could still feel the heavy crown sitting on my head, hear the chanting of my name from the crowd, and see the blood on my hands.
Chapter Nine
“What the hell was that?” I asked, my furry body quivering.
“A possible future for Katsura,” Belle said, the sadness in her eyes a reflection of my own.
“But you’ve seen other possibilities?” I demanded, needing just a glimmer of hope that my destiny could be changed. Wasn’t that what the other pixie had implied? My choices altered the future?
She fluttered to the edge of the couch, letting her legs dangle over the side. “I have. They’re all slightly different, but each have ended in similar destruction, and if you had stayed, you would have seen them.”
I didn’t want to, and it was clear in my eyes.
“It is difficult to see,” she said dejectedly, and I wondered how many times Belle had witnessed the destruction of the future.
“How do you deal with your gifts?”
The usual sparkle about her seemed to flicker. “At times it is a burden but also a blessing. In this case, I want to help you. I want to make sure what you saw doesn’t come to pass.”
My body felt numb and heavy, as if I’d been drugged. Blackness crawled into my peripherals. “I want that as well. I can’t fail. Another pixie was there. She said she was your sister.”
“We’re all sisters—family. You should sleep,” she said in a soft voice, penetrating through the haze.
I blinked, finding it harder to stay upright as I leaned against the couch for support. She was probably right. The journey to the future had taken a toll on me, and I felt the aftereffects weaving through my body like a disease.
“What’s going on in here?” boomed a voice I knew well.
“I’m giving Karina hunting lessons,” Belle stated proudly to Devyn, her wings beating quickly as she did loops around his body. I don’t know where she got that idea, but so far her lesson had only screwed with my head.
He scowled, and I could see from his expression that he wanted to swat the little sprite. “That’s a joke, right? What do you know about hunting? You’re a pixie.”
She went to cross her legs on the cushion—giant-sized for her—but threw herself off balance, falling over on the couch. Pushing herself up, she shoved a mass of red hair out of her face. “Thank you, captain obvious.”
Devyn’s scowl deepened, and it took everything in me not to snicker.
“I’ll have you know that I am quite skilled at the art of hunting.”
“Let me guess, flies and beetles?” he retorted.
I quickly shed my fur, stepping into my human skin before either of them decided to take a zap at the other. I faltered, forgetting how exhausted I was. Devyn steadied me, his hand slipping around my waist as he pulled me toward him.
“Whoa there, Kitten.” He turned eyes of steel toward Belle. “What did you do to her?”
“Calm down, watchdog, she’s in no danger. Nothing rest won’t cure,” she assured him.
“We’re not done yet, pixie. Don’t go anywhere,” he rumbled.
Devyn put me to bed. I didn’t want him to give Belle the third degree, nor did I want to leave them alone, but my body had other plans in mind. I placed my hand on his arm to stop him from leaving, but it was the last thing I remembered.
What had Belle done to me?
It was the first time since leaving home that I’d been able to sleep through the night. No nightmares of Silvermyst trying to kill me, or my friends finding out what I was and rejecting me. I didn’t even remember going to bed. And that was alarming.
Days passed without incident, and I began to relax. We’d fallen into a routine. As some parts of my life leveled out, one didn’t. My feelings for Devyn. Each day I fell in love with him more, and it scared me. What would happen to us once we got to Katsura? Devyn had made it clear things would be different, and he was keeping me at a distance. He cared for me—I felt it—but for reasons I couldn’t truly understand, a relationship between us was forbidden.
Bullshit.
It was one of the first things I planned to change once I took my seat on the throne in the gold city.
I tried not to dwell on the vision Belle had given me, but it was hard not to. If I did, I wouldn’t be able to find the strength and drive to continue this quest I found myself on. I was no closer to figuring out how to g
et my next tail, and the ticking clock echoed in my head.
The dawning sun was only beginning to crest in the morning mist as I stepped outside with a cup of coffee in hand. Devyn stood under the eaves of the house, sharpening his blades and Wrath and Fury twined around his arm while he worked. He glanced up while I approached. “You’ve been sleeping better,” he said.
I sat in the empty chair beside him and curled my legs up. “It’s weird. Ever since Belle gave me that glimpse of the future, my sleep has been dreamless.”
“It’s possible not everything that little terror does is a game, although she still shouldn’t have done what she did.”
No longer able to sit, I stood. “You mean she shouldn’t have done it without telling you first.”
His brow rose up. “Is that so wrong? I need to know how to protect you, and when I couldn’t sense our connection for those few moments, I thought the worst.”
I placed my hands over his, the magical blades disappearing, but the fae snakes remained. “I’m sorry I worried you.”
He ran his thumb along the inside of my palm. “Don’t do it again.” His lips pulled back into a smile, and the gleam in his eyes promised lots of trouble.
“Are you going to tell me what is going on with you? Ever since Belle showed up, you’ve been acting weird around me. Pushing me away. I’d hoped we were past that.”
He stared at me for another moment before raking a hand through his hair and sighing. “Her presence changes things.”
“How?” Because it definitely didn’t change the way I felt about him.
“She’s a reminder that I’ve been living a fantasy. And I don’t trust her—not with you or the feelings I have for you.”
“How long do we plan on keeping her here?” I asked.
Sunlight sliced over the mountains hitting the side of Devyn’s cheekbone. “I don’t know, but we can’t stay here much longer.”
“We’re leaving?” I should have expected it, but it still came as a shock.