by Bea Paige
I twist my head as far as I can to the side, feeling safe enough to watch the landscape move below us. The city is speckled with multicoloured lights, the darkness of night punctuated with the artificial glow of electricity. Roadways move with cars, tiny dinky toys carving through this city landscape of concrete and stone. Everything is so small, unreal.
I’m not sure whether I’m having some weird out-of-body experience, but I feel strangely disjointed and completely unafraid.
Ether shifts his arms around my back and thighs, pressing me even closer to his body. In such close proximity I can smell his scent. It’s flowery, like the first bloom of bluebells across a forest floor, but underneath there are darker, richer tones of musk and heat.
Of sin.
Of darkness wrapped in light.
Just like Gabe and his soul-stripping gaze, just like Mihr and his heart-wrenching voice.
Three men, three angels, each of them drawing me like a moth to a flame. If I had wings, they would be burning by now.
We must have climbed higher as it’s much, much colder now. My teeth begin to chatter as my body stiffens from the freezing cold leaching into my bones. Ether’s body heat isn’t enough to keep me warm. It’s still there, it just isn’t having any effect on the frigid wind and damp cloud.
“Fern, are you okay?” Ether asks.
“I’m cold,” I respond, my body trembling so much I’m worried Ether will drop me.
“It won’t be long now,” he says, trying to reassure me.
Black spots speckle my vision and I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to clear them. We aren’t touching skin to skin, so I don’t understand why I feel so strange. My head swims as though I am about to pass out, then lolls backwards, the cold needling my skin.
Ether looks down at me, concern pulling his brows together. His face blurs as I try to focus on him.
“Hold on, Fern,” he says, a note of panic in his voice as he shifts his body to the right. I feel us drop lower, and a few seconds later we’re below the cloud. I automatically search for Mihr, relieved when I see him emerge from the cloud too. He twists in the air, his body turning sharply. What is he doing? The closer he gets, the worse I feel and the more my vision seems to blur.
I squeeze my eyes shut, then open them up again, trying to focus on him.
Only it isn’t Mihr flying towards us like a heat-seeking missile, it’s Gabe, a look of rage on his face.
“Ether,” I manage to squeak before the light goes out and I tumble into darkness…
Black tendrils slide over my skin, feathering up my spine, seeping into open pores. It is not unpleasant, it is the kind of darkness that I imagine a baby feels in its mother’s womb. A lulling darkness, two hearts synchronised as one.
Thump, thump, thump.
Amniotic fluid sliding over paper-thin skin.
Part of me wants to let go, to allow the darkness to fill me up, to swallow me. To sleep forever in its embrace, to go back to that place surrounded by muscle and bone, where love, hope and new beginnings are a promise away…
But the darkness evolves into something else. It coils and weaves, changing, evolving. No longer lulling, it scrapes over my skin, pain and pleasure mixed into a recipe I want to taste. My mouth waters, my scalp prickles, my heart stutters between life and death. Heaven and hell.
Letting go would be easy, living is hard.
But I’m not one to ever take the easy route, so I swim towards the light that shines in the corner of my mind. A tiny spark, drawing me out of this place where my senses are overloaded with the touch of darkness, the sound of silence and the stench of death.
A muffled voice calls my name.
“Wake up, Fern! Wake the hell up!”
It’s Gabe’s voice.
My eyes snap open. “Gabe?” I whisper.
“Fern, FERN,” Ether shouts, pulling me out of the dark and into the light where I am still living, breathing. I could have sworn it was Gabe I’d heard.
I groan as consciousness battles against the pull to return to my mother’s womb, to the caress of death.
“Get her out of here,” I hear Ether roar.
Then his arms let go of me, and I am falling.
Falling.
Falling.
Wind rushes by me as I drop through misty clouds. I tumble in the air, the woollen blanket unravelling, freeing my arms and legs. The world tips upside down, rights itself, then tips once again as I twist and turn like an acrobat in the circus. A scream rips out of my throat only to be snatched by the wind. I freefall to my death, wondering how much it’s going to hurt when I eventually hit the ground. Hoping I fall unconscious before that point comes.
He dropped me. Ether let me go. He said he would keep me safe.
Those thoughts tumble through my head as I free fall.
Death is coming for me and there is nothing I can do to prevent it.
Chapter Fourteen
I hit something firm, hard. It forces the air from my lungs, making my eyes water. I expected it to hurt, but this death, it isn’t painful.
Something soft tickles against my cheek, forcing me to open my eyes. The tip of a feather pulls away as Mihr’s face comes into focus. I’m not dead after all, it appears Mihr kept his promise. Relief, followed by a sudden rush of adrenaline, rips through my body.
Ether dropped me, only for Mihr to catch me.
We are hovering in the air, his huge wings keeping us airborne. I grab at his arms, my fingers digging into the thin material of his long-sleeved top as I suck in deep breaths, my lungs screaming for oxygen. Mihr tips his head, asking me if I am okay. I’m already beginning to understand the subtleness of his language.
“I’m better now I’m not plummeting to the ground,” I manage to stutter.
He nods his head, his eyes briefly falling to mine. Within the summer blue are swirls of relief and a huge dose of concern.
“What happened? Why did Ether drop me?”
Mihr shakes his head, still not willing to communicate with words and unable to communicate with sign language, given he is holding me across his body. Instead, he pulls me tighter against his chest, tips forward and we move through the air in a sudden rush of flapping wings. We are moving much faster than I had been with Ether. Mihr’s face is strained with the effort of flying at such a speed. He doesn’t acknowledge me further, his gaze focused on a spot in the distance.
Hanging on for dear life, I have to trust that Mihr won’t drop me. I curl my fingers around the material of his top. It is only then I realise that we are touching skin to skin, my knuckles pressing against the bare skin of his neck. I snatch my hand away, but not before the lingering warmth has seeped into my skin and settled in my bloodstream.
Shit.
I wait for the cold to smother the warmth, just like it had with Gabe, but it doesn’t come. There is only a lingering, comforting warmth. What the hell is going on?
I don’t get to ask as Mihr tightens his grip, swerves sharply to his right and we nosedive towards the ground. A scream tears from my mouth. I feel Mihr’s fingers dig into my skin as his muscles flex under the strain of holding me. As we plummet, out of the corner of my eye I see a dark shape heading towards us. It is camouflaged well, and had it not been for the fact the clouds suddenly parted and the moon glinted against its metal wings I may not have seen it.
Metal wings?
The angel… No, it is not an angel. It has a humanoid body like them, wings, but it is not the same. This creature wants to kill. It wants to maim. Death by its hands is violent and savage. I know all this in one glance before two angels I do recognise tackle it mid-flight and the three tumble through the air. Gabe and Ether pummel their fists into the creature, who swipes back with jagged claws. I see blood spurt, but I have no idea who it belongs to.
“Noooooo,” I scream, but my cry is ripped from my mouth as Mihr rushes upwards once again, flying us away from the fight that is clearly taking place. Worry replaces fear, deep, sick-making worry.
Ether dropped me to protect me, and now he and Gabe are risking injury to ensure my safety.
My stomach rises into my mouth. I have the sudden urge to throw up. Pushing the palms of my hands against Mihr’s chest, I turn my head to the side and gag, swallowing down the bile in my throat. Mihr looks down at me with concern. The tip of one wing strokes against my face as I wipe a trembling hand against my mouth. I am completely and utterly vulnerable in his hands. His feathers stroke against my cheek and though it is comforting, though it makes me feel safe, that is short lived when I realise that if his wings aren’t flapping, then we are no longer flying, even though we are still ten thousand feet above the ground.
“Mihr, what is happening?” I ask, swallowing down another bout of nausea.
His summer-blue eyes and expressive face tell me we are safe. Safe from falling to our deaths and safe from the creature, for now at least. All of that I understand from one look. Satisfied that I’ve understood him, Mihr’s arm loosens beneath the back of my knees and he shifts me so that I am clutched against his length, chest to chest, hips pressed against hips, with nothing but a thin layer of material between us.
Am I afraid? Yes, but not for the reasons I should be. It has been a very long time since I have been in such close contact with a man. First Ether, now Mihr. My thoughts spiral off into a dangerous direction, a direction that has me firmly placed between three angels and damn the consequences.
Think about something else, Fern.
Mihr tenses as I move against his length, trying and failing to not feel afraid as I adjust myself into a comfortable position within his arms. In the end, with nowhere else to put my hands, I press my palms against the firm muscle of his chest. I can feel the beat of his heart. It is pounding fast, obviously from the effort of flying with such speed and skill.
“Will Gabe and Ether be okay?” I ask, blinking away the thought of them tackling that creature to protect me. My voice trails off when we are suddenly jerked upwards.
It feels as though we are being pulled in some kind of vortex, the air around us rushing upwards too. Mihr’s wings spread around my back just like they had in my kitchen back home, but this time they don’t hold me loosely. This time, his wings pull me in for a tight hug. They are incredibly soft but also have the ability to make me feel inexplicably safe. There is a strength in his gentleness. One that I am drawn to. Just like I am drawn to the darkness in Gabe and the leadership of Ether.
My hair flicks around my face as we begin to spin like a whirlpool in a bath, only in reverse, going up instead of down. We are twirling within a column of cloud, the centre of which is hollowed out. Within the silver grey I spot flashes of bright blue stars. They sparkle and glitter like sapphires, reminding me of the stone still on the floor back in my house.
Even though my head tells me we are still high above the ground, that if he let me go I could fall to my death, my heart tells me that Mihr wouldn’t do that. His wings circle me tighter, and I am certain that he won’t.
Where is Ether now? Where is Gabe? What happened? What was that creature?
All questions I will seek answers to as soon as Mihr’s hands are free to explain.
The tickle of Mihr’s hair against my cheek and the press of his palm on my lower back pulls me out of my thoughts and into the present. He taps me on my shoulder and I lean away from him slightly. Mihr points upwards, tipping his head back, looking above us. I do the same. I expect to see dark skies, a black night speckled with stars, but instead a dull pink light, like a hazy sun beneath thick cloud, beckons us closer.
Shadows lurk in the mist, separate from the funnel of cloud we are travelling in now, taking form the closer we get to them.
Eventually we come to a standstill. Mihr loosens his hold, lowering me down as firm ground forms beneath us, hidden by a swirl of mist. Dropping his hands from my waist and withdrawing his wings, Mihr steps away from me.
“Welcome to the Shadowlands,” he signs.
Chapter Fifteen
Ether
I fucking dropped her. I told her I would keep her safe and I dropped her. I swear to all that is Life I will never let her go again. She has no idea how special she is, and I don’t just mean the prophecy and her role with breaking the curse. There is more to Fern than just that. I can see it, sense it, feel it. Even the barest of touches has my skin zinging with fire. There have been many women over the years, but none of them have elicited such a reaction from me. Waiting weeks in Ever Vale whilst Queen Adrielle kept us under her control was torture, made worse because I couldn’t return to Fern. At least for her it was only a day. I’ve had a month to think about her quiet beauty, her core of steel. The way she looked at me in her kitchen earlier damn near stripped me bare.
Frankly, I would have started the war with the Queen myself just so I could get back to her. Meeting Accacia, seeing her bond with her men, only fuelled my desire to get back to Fern as soon as possible. Even though the stone taking us to Fern had proved Lissandra’s story to be correct, seeing that same ring on Accacia’s finger had confirmed to me what I’d known the moment our hands had touched; Fern is our saviour, and she is fated to us, prophecy or not. It is little wonder that Gabe is so drawn to her. The light Fern exudes is intoxicating… I shake my head of the thought. She has no damn clue of the hold she has over me, us.
Get a fucking grip, Ether.
Needing to concentrate on the task at hand, I lean forward and speed towards Gabe and the abomination that screams the same black magic that made me what I am. Tonight I shall be sending a clear message back to Queen Adrielle and this creature is going to be the damn messenger.
Deciding that the element of surprise is my only advantage right now, I climb higher into the clouds above the spot I can see Gabe fighting with the creature. All members of Clan Vitae have acute eyesight. I don’t believe the Queen had any intention for this to happen when she cast the curse. But what’s one advantage against the horrible fact we are nothing more than murderers? I’d exchange any positive side-effects of the curse for those lives I’ve taken by her command in a heartbeat.
Hovering fifty feet above them, I see that both Gabe and the creature are trying to rid the other of their wings. Gabe is holding his own, a dark fury possessing him. That creature may look formidable, but when Gabe is in this state no one has ever been able to defeat him. Still, I will not risk his life on chance. Deciding that the best course of action is brute strength and the element of surprise, I nose dive straight for the creature. Wind rushes past me, the cold air doing nothing to dampen the furnace that I carry within my chest always. It has burned brighter ever since laying eyes on Fern.
At the last minute, just before I am about to collide head-on with them, a well-aimed kick to the creature’s head dislodges his grasp from Gabe long enough for Gabe to summersault backwards through the air and rip a portion of its metal wing free from its body.
It lets out a rage-filled roar but rather than retaliate, something catches its attention and it flies away from us both. I look up sharply, following the creature’s gaze. Above us, Mihr is flying with Fern safely wrapped in his arms, but the blanket is missing. Fuck, she really doesn’t need Mihr marking her too. I can only hope he gets her to the Shadowlands soon. Being marked twice would be a disaster.
“Where the fuck do you think you’re going?” Gabe roars, knowing exactly where the creature’s heading. He chases after it, grabs its ankle and yanks it backwards. Given its size and weight it crashes back into Gabe and myself and we hurtle to the ground once more, but not before it has taken a swipe at Gabe with its clawed hand. Blood erupts from the deep gouges it makes in his chest, but Gabe is oblivious. His fury knows no bounds. Over the sound of the wind and the cries of rage I can hear the creature speak.
“You think you can betray Queen Adrielle and get away with it?” Grunt. “You think you can embarrass our Queen and not feel her wrath?” Grunt. “You think you can take sides with her brother and not expect retaliation?” Grunt. �
�I am going to rip your wings from your backs and your heads from your shoulders, and then I’m going to have my way with that pretty blonde before chopping her up into little pieces and serving her to our Queen,” the creature rasps.
“SHUT. YOUR. FUCKING. MOUTH,” Gabe roars, and with an almighty tug, pulls the creature’s half-torn wing from its body, then kicks him in the chest. I move away from its flailing arms, but not before it has ripped a handful of feathers from my own wing. A sharp pain registers but I push it away, not allowing it to darken my vision. Gabe and I pull back and for one second, before the creature drops like a mountain to the ground, I capture the man beneath the grotesque mask.
Abanthe.
“Is that who I think it is?” Gabe asks, pressing a palm against his chest. When he pulls it away there is blood, although not enough to be greatly concerned about, thankfully.
I nod my head. “Yes, seems Queen Adrielle has made him even more twisted than he already is.”
We watch Abanthe fall for long minutes, both of us needing to be certain that he isn’t going to return, at least not anytime soon and that’s only if he survives the fall. Though something tells me Abanthe will be back. Previously cursed as a member of Clan Lux who cannot go out in the sun and needs to drink blood to survive, Abanthe is now something far more twisted. Black skin like molten lava, metal wings and blood red eyes, he is a Dark Knight made into something infinitely worse. A demon formed from the darkest parts of Queen Adrielle’s soul, and now he knows about Fern.
And if he knows about Fern, then it won’t take long for him to report back to the Queen about another woman one of her clans is so desperate to protect.
I turn to Gabe and squeeze his arm. “It’s time to go. We have lots to discuss.”