by Lexi Ostrow
“Dale, no offense intended, I think you’re being a little tight-assed about things. Have you ever seen my mate kill? The gleam in his eyes is so bright he could power New York City. He lives for the kill, revels in it even. What could make this Breena dark when Stryder is not?”
“She kills whoever she’s ordered too. Guards, women, children, pets. Whatever her father tells her to do to win the war, she does it.”
Ciara said nothing, but a small scowl was tugging at her lips.
“And then there’s her power because, of course, a sprite would have powers. She’s pulls dream energy.. She said she can help cure headaches by doing it, but she uses it in war as well. Pull too much energy, and the person either dies or becomes weak enough to attack and kill in the near future.”
She did gasp that time, and Dale felt bile rising in his throat. His voice was barely more than a whisper as he confessed to the darkness that he’d allowed in.
“I did it, Ciara. I tried her power out, and I killed someone.” The second half of the sentence was uttered so quietly he wasn’t certain she heard it. Not until he saw the tears shining in her eyes. Ciara had killed to protect herself, but she’d never killed to kill.
He forced himself to keep going. “But the power, Ciara. Oh, fuck the power. It felt like there wouldn’t be anything I couldn’t do. No Guardian Word Speaker pair I couldn’t take down. Pairing it with the strength of the stuff I’ve gotten from you, Nessa and my other Guardian, I’d be unstoppable.” Even as he said the words, he could hear the power lust in his voice and as much as he wanted to be ashamed by it—he wasn’t.
“End it. End it right now, Dale. Power is nothing without friends. You said as much yourself the day I gave you mine. What you feel for Breena, it’s a Guardian bond only, and your own twisted desire for power.”
The disgust in her voice tore him in half almost as much as considering her words could be true. Could he be so shallow as to only feel something toward Breena because he wanted what she could offer him? He’d always wanted to be useful, to be seen, and, suddenly, he had been.
“But what if you’re wrong, Ciara? What if she hadn’t intended for me to kill, the victim had been one of her own clan. What if things simply went horribly wrong?” He saw the tears fall down her cheeks and wanted to kick himself, but he couldn’t stop the next question. “What if I’m actually falling in love with Breena because of how similar we are?”
“Then you need to end it,” Ciara repeated herself.
The words struck him as hard the second time as they had the first.
“There’s a difference, Dale, between loving someone and loving what someone can give you. Breena can give you power and life. You don’t love her. I don’t know if you can possibly read enough in a day to form a bond to pick a Guardian, let alone pick one to release in two weeks. But you don’t have a choice.” Her eyes were shimmering with more tears. “Please, Dale, please walk away.”
He tried to respond, and his voice was stuck in his throat. Could she be right? Was everything he was feeling only a last ditch attempt to save his own ass and remain special? Dale shook his head violently, that wasn’t who he was anymore. If he had feelings for Breena, it was because he’d been attracted to everything she’d been when he was reading. Spending even the littlest bit of time with her had only intensified that attraction. She had her flaws, but he’d seen the depths of emotion from her when they’d walked through the forest, and when she’d begged him to try for her. She was more than she appeared, they just hadn’t found out how much more.
“How can I give up on her so soon?” Dale hadn’t even realized he’d asked the question aloud until Ciara responded.
“Because this is about so much more than you now. This is about everyone I could have helped protect if the war happens. It’s about fighting on the side that I trust you to fight for because, while you might not see it, I’m disgusted with myself for running.”
“But in the end, you chose love.”
She stood up off the bench and crossed her arms over her chest. “Yes I did, Dale. I chose real, mind blowing, life altering love. Can you tell me that’s what you be would choosing?”
“Of course not. For fuck’s sake, I barely know her. I just know what I am going through.” He paused and they just hung in the silence, her standing and him sitting. The lie slipped off his tongue as easily as any other he’d ever told. “Ok, Ciara. You’re right. I need to figure out how to connect with someone in the books Leather Jacket brought me, but you’re right. I went after power and sexuality. I’ll find a new Guardian.”
The words burned like acid in his mouth, but he fought off the urge to gag. Ciara could never know about the lie. He would find a way to fix Breena. He had too.
She didn’t smile at him. Instead, she lowered herself back onto the bench and wrapped her arms around him. “I know how hard it feels, Dale. When I lost Alcott, I swore that was the end. You’re in a time crunch, but it only took Stryder a few hours into the book to reach out to me. If you have to finish Demarcus’ book to move on, just do it. Don’t leave a door to me open and sacrifice everything else. You can always read the next one anyway.” She winked as she pulled back.
“Ahh, about that. Your author, well, she died in a car accident.”
Ciara’s mouth hung open. “Oh, gods. Did I, did we cause that?”
“I got the impression that we did. That by choosing this world, you altered everything that had been planned for it, and that was what the universe did.”
She looked as if she was going to be sick. “Then what’s done is done, and I’ll mourn the loss of the most creative woman out there, because she created Stryder. But I would not trade her life for the one I have with him.”
Dale smirked, he wondered if Ciara knew, when it came to her mate, she had just a tinge of darkness dwelling deep inside her as well.
“You’re dead as well. I just thought you might like to know.”
Sadness crept into her gaze, and then she looked away from him, but he heard the small sniffle. “I suppose I’m alright with that as well.”
Dale wasn’t certain what more there was to say to her. A strange tension hung in the air, and it was so tangible, it felt as if it had a heartbeat. It made sitting near her difficult because he had most certainly just lied to his only friend.
“I think I need to leave. I don’t have a lot of time anymore.”
She nodded. “If for some reason you don’t finish the story, there’s a wedding soon. I don’t know how the hell to get word to you to be here at the right time, but if you can, I want you here.”
He grinned at her and stood up. “Damn that was quick.”
“Well, I might have been waiting, hoping you’d show back up.”
“I’ll do my damnedest to set this right, Ciara. I swear to you.” He meant the words too. He might have lied about letting Breena go, but he would fix it, or he would end things if the time got to close to the end. “Tell Mr. Scary in there thank you for saving my ass at the bar.”
He heard the sound of her laughter as he focused on his bedroom. Thinking about the room he spent most of his time in because of work was always so much easier than any other place in his condo. The space distorted, and then he could see in perfectly.
“Well, I see you haven’t gotten rid of the geek chic at all.”
He turned and jokingly flipped her off before walking through the doorway. Dale turned to look back at Ciara, who was still looking at him. So much separated them, and yet, they were closer than any other Word Speaker’s ever would be because, as far as Dale knew, they were still the only two to have ever met.
She gave a small wave, and he waved back. A helpless gesture, but nonetheless, it made him feel better to know she was still there. “But she won’t be if you don’t get this sorted and fall to the wrong side.”
Dale sighed and mentally closed the doorway. He needed to wait a day, even if he didn’t have the luxury of time. Breena meant something to him, he was sure
of it, and they were going to find a way. First, he was going to take a long nap and do some work, so his boss didn’t fire him.
Chapter Fourteen
Thirty-six hours, Breena thought as she looked at the clock on the wall. Dale hadn’t been back, and she couldn’t blame him. She had accidentally turned him into exactly what he didn’t want to be. A killer.
Her heart hurt over what she’d done to him. She cared what he thought of her, and it did piss her off that he saw her as nothing more than a killer. Nevertheless, when he’d believed in her, it had been the little push she’d needed to fully start to develop feelings for him. He was human, and decidedly, an asshole, but he had a past that made her ache and a future that she found incredibly sexy—despite everything.
However, it was all over. “You had one chance to fix things, one chance to prove to him to keep you. One chance to save your sister and father from the stupid war, and you blew it because you thought he’d been over exaggerating.” The words ‘one chance’ echoed on repeat in her mind.
It was the first time she’d admitted the failure to herself. She’d thought Dale had been over playing how much he enjoyed power and making others suffer before his last Guardian. She knew the exhilaration in taking an energy thread, and she knew that the only reason she killed in that way, with her powers, was because her father ordered it. The energy overflow into her body felt like a supercharge, but it also sickened her. To kill someone by stealing their life force, well, for some reason it felt wrong to her.
To Dale, it obviously hadn’t. Dale had minded. The look in his eyes was one she would never forget. Fear mixed with malicious intent all stirred up with anger, but the fear was the smallest thread she had seen. She could have stopped it too. That was the worst part. She’d seen the smile etched on his lips as he’d played with the power. Breena had just believed he would stop before he did something he would regret. “And yet, he hasn’t. You’ve got not one war, but two, on your shoulders now and possibly Dale’s death.”
She turned and stared at her reflection in the mirror, and for the first time, wondered what people saw when they looked at her. She was as beautiful as any sprite, perhaps more so because she had royal blood, and it seemed to make her glow almost. Her hazel eyes were round and big, enticing almost. Her light brown hair was glossy and the lighter blonde tips from when she played with honey gleamed in the light. Though she wasn’t much above five feet, her body was well muscled, honed from war. She saw no innocence radiating from her eyes, but she didn’t see the evil she saw in Leather Jacket’s. That had to mean something.
Breena did what she did on an order. She enjoyed it, and she had never assumed it was wrong to enjoy a victory until Dale. Somehow, things felt a little less celebratory when she thought back over all the victories she’d won through another’s death or torture. Either way, evil and cunning trickery did not shine out of her eyes the way it did Leather Jacket’s and, because of that, she had to believe she could be changed for Dale. For herself. To be better than who she was under her father’s hand, that was what being released as a Guardian meant for her. She knew that without a doubt.
A scream shattered her trance, and her head jerked as her body spun behind her, even as her hands grabbed at the daggers she kept. She gasped as she saw the doorway swirling before her. Dale was struggling with three men in Unseelie warrior garb. Her father had broken his word and had sent his own men anyway. Streaks of colors whizzed past as he shot his own brand of magic at them, but it wasn’t enough. Unseelie warriors, even Seelie warriors, had been trained against elemental attacks and had the speed and grace of the finest warriors. Dale couldn’t handle it with simply his powers, and if he knew that, he wasn’t prepared to fight hand to hand because he hadn’t given up with his power.
She cursed and ran at the doorway with as much speed as she could muster. Her dagger slammed into the backside of one of the warrior’s neck as she pummeled through, and she didn’t even bother to see which of her father’s men she had killed. The dagger tore back out of his neck with a squishing sound, and she felt nothing as his dead weight dropped onto her feet.
“Dale! Look out!” she shouted just as Tanyan, her father’s first in command, lanced Dale’s right shoulder with a blade.
Her heart stopped, and the scene seemed to play in slow motion. She had a choice to make, her family or Dale, and she had no clue as to which was the right one. Her heart thudded so loud in her ears, she couldn’t hear the grunts and groans of the fight. She was immobilized as she watched the fight. The two remaining sprites ignored her, most likely ordered to.
Fury at her father began to snake through her body. She screamed as she kicked out and knocked the other, Martiando, to the ground with a kick to his ankles. He dropped and she threw herself on top of him. Her body weight pinned down a man she had bedded more times than she could count, and he stopped moving. His eyes went blank, and his body was utterly still as she pressed the side of her dagger into this throat, cutting off circulation, but not drawing more than a small trial of blood from his neck. Their eyes locked, and his were devoid of emotion. She was without warning as he bucked his knees. The motion sent them into her stomach, and she felt the air whoosh out of her lungs as she sailed off him.
“Breena, get back. I can handle this!” Dale shouted as he tried to send a bolt of lightning at Tanyan but missed.
“No, you can’t. These are my…” she paused, unable to call them anything because she wasn’t certain if they were her enemies. “They’re from my world. Our warriors are trained against attacks of your kind. We fight with our bodies when presented with elemental magic. It must be how I am enough to guard you. I can hold my own against you and teach you strength in other fighting styles.” She was grasping at straws. She had no choice.
“Are you two done?” Martiando hissed as he stood up. “We have orders to take you in and we will not fail as—”
Breena’s dagger sailed through the small space and slammed into his stomach. He gasped and clutched at the hilt. He would live, but he would not finish his sentence. She charged Tanyan then, knocking him backward into the doorway. She saw as Mariando half-hobbled, half-jumped through, but it was Tanyan who spoke.
“Your betrayal will not be ignored, Princess,” he sneered her title, as he always had when she displeased him, but this time, she did not care.
“Not when the betrayal did not start with me!” She turned and ran back through the doorway before either could lay a hand on her. “Close it! Fucking close it now, Dale!” she shrieked at him even as she turned to look at the two warriors on the other side.
She’d grown up with one like a father, and the other as a lover, and she’d just made enemies of them both.
Their eyes narrowed, and she saw them shouting at her. Thankfully, the doorway didn’t allow for sound to pass through. Because of that, Dale would never know that the castle he had just seen belonged to her father. She still needed to protect Megara from Leather Jacket and her father, apparently, because it would appear he had thrown out all the rules in favor of winning the war of the courts.
Quickly, the doorway began to swirl and shrink until it vanished and became nothing more than air. She heard how heavily Dale was breathing, and she turned back to see him. The body of the dead warrior, Tyral, lay on the floor near Dale’s feet, but Dale was the one who had fared the worst in the fight. Blood dripped down his neck from a cut just under his chin and flowed a little quicker down his arm from the slice. His eye was red and glossy, and his lip was swollen and split. He held no weapon in his hand, and she was certain that, without her, he would be a prisoner by then.
“Dale,” her voice was soft as she reached a hand out to him.
“Don’t worry about it. I can fix it, remember?” his voice was gruff, pissed off.
“Oh right, I had forgotten.”
He moved around her as if she wasn’t even there, and she heard the water turn on in his bathroom. Minutes later, when he walked back into his room, the c
uts were gone, but the bruise remained.
“Why didn’t they have wings, Breena?” his voice was so deadly she thought she felt a little of Leather Jacket in him for the first time.
“I’m not certain I understand.”
“You said they were from your world, and that fairies have wings and sprites don’t. So where the fuck were their wings?”
He advanced on her as he spoke, and she felt her heart thumping madly again. Dale had attacked her before, and she wasn’t certain he wouldn’t do it again. She wanted to tell him the truth, but he wasn’t ready to hear it. She had to get him to care about her world if she was going to get him to help her save it.
She forced herself to look him in the eyes as she put her hands on his shoulders and gently caressed her way down them. Even with his anger and the battle they’d just finished, she could feel her body awakening at the mere idea of touching him. It should have embarrassed her. Instead, it only muddled the water, making it impossible to know if what she was going to do was wrong.
“There are all kinds in both courts, remember? I know nothing about your mythology on our kind, but the courts are made up of Fae of all races on both sides. Sprites can be Seelie just as they can belong to my father. I thought you understood this, I thought it was clear when I basically had to tell you I was evil to explain the differences.” She didn’t pull her gaze away, and while there was venom in her words, she was confident in them because they weren’t actually a lie.
Dale’s eyes immediately softened, and his arms tugged her to him in a hug. The action sent her pulse spiking. There was no reason she should accept the action as an apology. Only, he was right, they were sprites from the Unseelie court.
She sighed as she felt her body mold to his, and she was certain she heard him do the same. His chin rested on her head and it felt strange when he whispered, “I’m sorry.”
She didn’t respond, merely pulled back just enough to tilt her head back and kiss him, a way to ensure she didn’t cave and tell him the full truth. “It’s alright. In your position, with what I let you do, I can understand.”