Covert Fae

by C. N. Crawford

  I crossed to the other side of the parapet, and when I peered over the edge, my stomach dropped.

  There, in the courtyard, three humans stood on a gallows. Katie, Lucy, and Alex stared up at me, eyes wide, mouths gagged. Thick nooses had been tied around their necks.

  I swallowed hard. This is not good.

  “You tried to convince us you’re no good with a bow and arrow,” he continued. “But I’m going to give you a little test, succubus. I’m going to hang these three humans, who you say you don’t know. If you truly don’t care about humans, you can watch them choke to death at the end of a rope. If you’re so shit with a bow and arrow, there will be nothing you can do about it anyway.”

  Panic sunk its claws into my heart. Oh. Shit.

  Chapter 28

  Johnny took another step closer to me. With him standing so near, raw hunger seemed to eat at me from the inside out—a void that could never be filled. I wanted to get away from him.

  Instinctively, I took a step back.

  A million thoughts raced through my mind as I considered my options. I had the knife of Nyxobian silver strapped to my thigh. If I went full fae and acted swiftly enough, I could pull the knife from its sheath. I could slit Johnny’s throat, poisoning him with the Devil’s Bane. He’d be unconscious for a while.

  But that would leave us seriously screwed, wouldn’t it? How would I get my three friends out of here before the other two angels descended and killed us all?

  I tried to push away my whirling emotions and think rationally. What was my ethical obligation here?

  It was like the old moral test—a man is tied to one branch of a train track, and five are on the other branch. The train is headed for the group of five. Do you pull the lever and switch the train’s trajectory?

  There was supposed to be a right answer, I thought. You were supposed to kill the one guy, saving the five. Never mind that I wanted more information. What if the five people were Nazis, or had painful terminal illnesses? You weren’t supposed to think about that. It was supposed to be a numbers game—kill the one to save the many.

  And right now, before me, I had a numbers game. Three human lives for the lives of the many I could potentially help by collaborating with the Order.

  By this point, all the euphoria of Eimmal had rushed right out of my system, and fear gnawed at my ribs.

  “Are you ready to watch them die?” asked Johnny. “Don’t worry. Their necks won’t snap, so you’ll get to watch them suffocate slowly. A miserable death, really.”

  “I really don’t care,” I said hollowly, my hands shaking.

  Johnny handed me the bow and the quiver of arrows, and I worked to still the shaking in my hands as I took them from him.

  “Put the quiver on,” he ordered.

  My legs were shaking as I followed his instructions, sliding the quiver onto my back.

  Sacrifice them for the greater good, I told myself. You can save many more lives if you don’t blow your cover here.

  I just couldn’t stop myself from thinking about how much we’d been through together—the cold, starving nights, the gangs, our little shared garden. Our nights of keeping sane by telling stories around the fireplace. We were survivors—all of us.

  “Let the show begin!” shouted Johnny. He flicked his wrist, and the trapdoor descended from the bottom of the gallows.

  My heart thundered in my chest.

  He’d lowered the trapdoor just enough so that they were choking slowly, their tiptoes straining against the wood below them.

  Weakness shook my legs. It wasn’t just a numbers game, was it? It was stupid to pretend emotions played no part in moral decisions. I wasn’t a machine.

  Fury raced through my body, and I nocked an arrow, my arm still searing from where I’d injured it yesterday. I loosed the arrow, and it struck Alex’s rope. I shot off my arrows rapid-fire, and after three hits to his rope, the thing snapped. Alex fell through the trapdoor. I was already reaching for the next arrow, unleashing a rapid volley until Katie, then Lucy fell through the trapdoor to the earth below.

  I lowered my bow, turning to look at Johnny.

  I’d just completely blown my cover, and the punk angel now glared down at me.

  “Well, well, well. The succubus cares about humans.”

  I racked my mind for a way to get out of this that would still be in character. Trembling all over, I cocked a hip. “Listen, Johnny. It’s been a long time since I’ve fed from humans, and I didn’t see any reason to waste perfectly good resources. The human male looked tempting.”

  He snarled, “Explain to me your sudden prowess with the bow.”

  I shrugged. “I’ve had four thousand years to practice. So I held back a bit in our demon battle. I just wanted to see what you flying vultures were capable of.”

  Johnny snarled, stepping closer until his tall form loomed over me, leaving me in shadow. “Thing is, love, I really don’t believe you, do I? I can see it in your eyes. You’re lying.”

  Adonis yesterday, Johnny today.

  I was well and truly fucked at this point. If I made it off this parapet alive, I’d sneak out of here and find my way back to the rookeries as soon as I could.

  My stomach tightened. But then I’d never see Hazel again.

  A shadow swooped above us, and I glanced up at Adonis’s form soaring lower, his midnight wings gleaming in the morning sunlight.

  Oh sweet earthly gods. My morning wasn’t about to get any better, was it? Johnny already thought I was guilty—and Adonis was about to confirm it.

  My heart thundered as the Dark Lord landed. I glanced over the parapet one more time at my human friends, watching them scramble out from under the gallows, arms tied behind their backs. This must have been terrifying for them.

  Adonis’s footsteps turned my head.

  A smile ghosted across his beautiful features. “Please don’t tell me you decided to have a slaughter party without inviting me. Honestly, I’m insulted.”

  Johnny’s eyes were positively murderous. “I have a little theory about our street demon.”

  Adonis leaned against the parapet, folding his arms. “Oh? Indulge me.”

  “I think she’s the very ginger tart the sentinels saw wandering around East London. Mind you, they said she wasn’t a succubus, and she was a bit skinnier, but what the hell do they know?”

  I offered a sympathetic grimace. “He’s been at the vodka.”

  Johnny pointed at the courtyard. “And I think she was living with those humans down there—the ones she just saved with her considerable aim. And what’s more, I think she’s the reason all the humans evacuated the Tower yesterday. You wouldn’t by any chance have seen her wandering about the woods yesterday, would you?”

  Adonis’s pale eyes slid to me, and an icy shiver ran over my skin. This wasn’t turning out well for me.

  He seemed to be studying me, assessing me. “Mmm. No. In fact, before my visit to the Tower, I was in my room all day. As it happens, Ruby was with me. You know, Kratos wasn’t lying about her dancing.”

  Johnny and I both stared at him.

  What the hell? He was covering for me?

  “She was with you?” Johnny repeated. “The whole day?”

  His lips curled in a wicked smile. “Did you know that a succubus can get herself into positions I’ve never seen another creature achieve?”

  I nearly decked him, but I held back.

  “Kratos won’t like that,” Johnny slurred. “He resents the fact that you can’t fall yet.”

  Adonis shrugged slowly. “Probably best you don’t tell him about what I was up to.”

  Johnny scratched his head. “Why did she save the humans, then?”

  Adonis shrugged again. “Demons get annoyed when we kill their food. Let me take care of the humans.”

  Johnny didn’t look like he was ready to let this go. “And her sudden skill with the bow and arrow? How do you explain that?”

  Adonis blinked. “Johnny, of course she
’s always been skilled.” He spoke slowly, as if Johnny were a particularly dull child. “A demon’s not going to give away her gifts around the angels unless she needs to, is she? Any skilled warrior would have done the same.”

  I just stared at him. What exactly did he have planned here?

  Johnny shot me a sharp look. “Just because you were stripping in front of the Dark Lord yesterday, don’t think this leaves you in the clear. Maybe you’re not guilty of this particular leak, but I don’t trust you.”

  “Your opinion is noted. Can I keep the bow?”

  “No.” He snatched it from my hands, then stalked off, gray wings trailing behind him.

  Adonis was still leaning against the parapet, his powerful magic humming over my body, curling luxuriously over my skin. His expression suggested this whole thing was hilarious to him.

  I tapped the stone, trying to mentally block out the plight of my friends still bound and gagged in the courtyard below. I needed to stop Adonis from executing them. “I was stripping for you yesterday, was I?”

  He cocked his head. “I could see your hands shaking from above. Even high in the air, your fear washed over my skin. I thrive on terror, did you know that? It feeds me. Yours tasted exquisite.”

  I swallowed hard. There wasn’t much left I could say at this point. I dropped the act. “What do you want? Why did you help me?”

  “I’d ask you to tell me the truth, but I suspect you’d sooner eat your own entrails.”

  An icy wind whipped over the stone walls, toying with his dark hair, and his gray-blue eyes glinted in the bright light. “You want me to let your human friends live? Come to my room tonight after dinner.”

  My mouth went dry. “For what? I’m not stripping for you. That’s not the kind of dancing I do…” I bit my lip. “Well, that’s part of it, but not like you think.”

  He shook his head slowly. “Is that any way to treat someone who just helped you?”

  “Why did you help me?” All I knew was that he had something sinister planned. “And what are you going to do with them?”

  “Because now you owe me, and I’ll get them somewhere safe.”

  “But what do you want from me?”

  His gaze raked over my body in a sensual caress. “Maybe you were right. Maybe men like me like to have control over beautiful things.”

  I shivered, hugging myself tightly. What the hell had I gotten myself into?

  That heartbreakingly beautiful smile curled his lips again. “I was told you can dance. I want to see it. And I don’t think you have much choice, do you? Unless you want me to kill your friends.” He stalked off with that infuriating, languid ease.

  An icy shudder rippled up my spine. Two out of three angels now suspected me of betrayal.

  Now I had two projects for today: make myself a burlesque costume for some sort of performance for the Dark Lord; and finish carving my bow and arrows from the yew grove. I had a terrible feeling I’d be needing them soon.

  Chapter 29

  In the yew grove, I scaled the rowan—an ancient, gnarled tree with a single silver branch at the top. A gift from the Old Gods.

  From a window, I’d watched as Adonis had led my friends out into the forest. Was it stupid to hope that Adonis would keep his word? I hadn’t wanted to seem to desperate by demanding details from him.

  I grunted as I pulled my way to the top of the tree, using the rowan’s knots and branches. As I hoisted myself up, the wound in my arm burned. The archery wound hurt like a bitch, but at least Yasmin had gotten out okay.

  And now I was working on that gleaming silver branch. This could be the key to the angels’ downfall, right here in the yew grove. Maybe Adonis had even been trying to protect it.

  I winced as I hoisted myself higher.

  I had one guess as to what I was supposed to do with a silver branch—and it happened to be something I was very good at. I needed to make it into weapons, and then use them to kill the angels.

  Weirdly enough, I felt a flicker of guilt at the idea of killing Kratos, and even Adonis. Must be some sort of Stockholm syndrome taking effect.

  I reached the top—the rowan branch that blended into silver at the end. I peered down from the boughs at the wintry ground below, dizzy from the height. My pulse began to race. One false move and my skull would smash against the cold earth.

  Straddling it, I shimmied along the branch until the rowan’s bark smoothed over to silver. Here, the tree was about eight inches in diameter—not thick enough for me to feel well-supported. And definitely not thick enough for me to feel great about taking one hand off the branch to reach for my knife.

  Still, it’s not like I had access to a ladder or a cherry picker in Hotemet Castle.

  Clenching my teeth hard, I reached down for the knife strapped to my thigh.

  My plan was simply to sever the branch here and see what I could do to fashion it into arrows, knives—anything that could be used to kill. But as soon as I brought the knife down to the branch’s surface, the tree’s ancient magic began seeping into my body, and light whirled around me.

  Even with just the tip of my knife in the tree’s branch, my body began to tremble with an overwhelming power. This was a magic so ancient, it had bloomed and grown before language. I wanted to taste it, to touch it, to bathe in it. But as I slipped my knife deeper into the branch, it started to overwhelm me, snapping and buzzing through my body in a riot of power until I could hardly remember my name.

  Light. Light all around me. The branch blazed with a blinding force—a divine magic, sublime and terrifying.

  With my knife sticking into the branch, I was tapping into a raw source of magic, both dreadful and breathtaking. I’m not ready, not ready.

  The power awestruck me. With the stupefying display of blinding light around me, the Old Gods were delivering a message in their own wordless way.

  Stop. This way, madness lies.

  I pulled my knife from the tree branch, and the light around me dulled. I sucked in a few shaking breaths, my entire body trembling.

  Whatever the Old Gods wanted me to do with the silver branch, hacking it off with a knife of Nyxobian silver wasn’t it.

  Okay. Okay. I’ll leave you alone for now.

  I slid my knife back into its holster and slowly began shimmying my way back along the branch, my body still vibrating with that strange power.

  I still had weapons to finish from the yews, and as long as I dipped them in Devil’s Bane, I could use them to disable the angels.

  But soon enough, I needed to find out exactly what I was supposed to do with the silver branch.

  I’d spent the rest of the afternoon carving my ordinary yew weapons in the forest. When I’d finished, I’d laced the tips with Devil’s Bane, ready to pierce an angel’s flesh. Then I’d buried them in the woods, keeping them safe from prying castle eyes.

  Kratos had invited me to join him for dinner, and I’d dressed in a distractingly low-cut gown—crimson and gold, his favorite colors.

  What exactly did I want to distract him from? For one thing, there was the fact that I’d spent all day trying to develop weapons that could kill him, and for another, there was my evening dance date with Adonis.

  Across from him at the dinner table, I took a long sip of wine. I couldn’t drink too much, but I needed to calm my nerves tonight. At least my stomach had been lined with a sumptuous meal.

  Kratos’s copper eyes burned into me, as though he could read my secrets. After a while, a distracting gown wouldn’t be enough to hide what I really was. Still, he looked relaxed in his wooden chair, his wings not in appearance tonight. He wore finely cut clothing in a deep red fabric, golden rings glinting on his fingers.

  As he studied me, his body radiated light. “Don’t worry, Ruby. We’ll find a way to hunt down the demons and humans connected to the attack. You’ll be safe here.”

  I forced a smile, lifting my glass. For the love of the gods, just leave them alone. “I’m sure they’re not much of
a threat. They seemed so easily killed.”

  If he wanted to know who the real threat was, it was his dinner guest.

  A muscle twitched in Kratos’s jaw. “The attackers never should have gotten so close to you.”

  I sipped my wine slowly. “Do you have any leads on where the Order went?”

  His fingers tightened around his wineglass. “Not yet. But we’ll find them.”

  “What about my sister?”

  “I’m sorry. We haven’t been able to find her. My men are still looking.”

  I tried to push away the disappointment. At least I knew she was alive.

  I leaned back in my chair, my belly full of venison pie. It was only a matter of time before Johnny tried to poison Kratos against me, and that meant I had to get in there first. Right now I had an important seed to plant with Kratos.

  I sighed deeply, pushing my glass away. “I probably shouldn’t have too much to drink. I hardly touch the stuff.”

  “Oh?”

  “Well, in times like this, when we’re under attack by demons, you need to keep your wits about you, don’t you? The earthly gods will exploit any weaknesses they can find.”

  He frowned. “Funny that you mention that. I found Johnny passed out among three empty bottles of vodka in one of the hallways today.”

  I raised my eyebrows as if surprised. “Well, I’m not suggesting that’s how the Order knew you were coming…”

  “What do you think happened?” he asked.

  I shrugged. “All I know is that the earthly gods, like Nyxobas, can take many forms, and it wouldn’t be difficult for one of them to pry secrets out of a drunken angel. Of course, it could have been anything, and I don’t want to blame Johnny.”

  Kratos nodded gravely. “I need to keep him away from the alcohol.”

  “It’s not a bad idea. With magic as powerful as he has, he could be a danger to himself, you know.”

  Kratos pushed his wineglass away. “Enough of this bleak discussion.” He stood, holding out his hand to me. “Before I leave for my hunt, I have something I want to show you.”