Claimed: Faction 3: The Isa Fae Collection

by Heather Hambel Curley

  “Did you?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “A man tried to rape me. After the second bomb dropped…and…and I did what I had to do.” I swallowed hard, clamping my teeth down on my tongue until I tasted blood. The prickle of tears behind my eyes faded. “And I regret it. I protected myself and my sister, but I wish I hadn’t killed him. I have to live with that.”

  “You had to protect yourself. You shouldn’t have had to make that choice, to be put in that situation.”

  “Neither should you. With your brother.”

  “And with you. For a long time, Da was able to get us energy credits because of who he was, because of our family name. Then the Ascendancy came to power and everything changed. There were more regulations, stricter control over credits and how to acquire them. There were twelve of us, plus staff. He knew people would die. He just set it up to ensure that he would live to see the end.”

  I spoke slowly, I wasn’t sure how to process any of this. This huge house, formerly so full of people and commotion; now it was a tomb. I couldn’t imagine watching my whole family die around me. “It must have been difficult to watch your children die.”

  “He focuses only on material things, never his own flesh and blood.”

  My finger slipped off the G key; I stumbled across several wrong notes until I got back on the right sequence. I’d been here before—and I knew what happened.

  An unfamiliar feeling stirred inside of me. I didn’t want to lose him. He was the closest thing I had to an ally and, moreover, the only soul in this wasteland that I could tolerate. He intrigued me, I enjoyed his company…at least, I had for the last few moments.

  “What?”

  I realized I was staring at him. This wasn’t how the vision had gone; he hadn’t questioned me. Good, I’d been wrong. My second sight, like everything else about me, was shit. “Uh…just thinking. You’re being kind. Nice. I didn’t expect that.”

  “Humans see us as horrible monsters, but we can be pleasant, too.” His lopsided grin exposed the dimple on his left cheek; he ran his slender fingers over the back edge of the couch. “You’re rather pleasant. For a human, anyway.”

  “So, all those stories from my childhood? They’re true?” I rocked my foot against the damper pedal, softening the tone of the chords and keys. “Or, at least, nominally true?”

  “Fae don’t hide under beds or in closets.”

  “Well, no, that’s the boogeyman. The verdict is still out on if he’s real or not.” I smiled at him. He smiled back; there was that dimple again. “In the West Woods, not far from where I grew up, there was an abandoned railroad. Smashed and burned out cars, that kind of thing…anyway, a voodoo girl I knew said mortals couldn’t go there. They’d never come out.”

  “We stay away from their gods.”

  “Voodoo?”

  “The are allies with the dead.” He ran his fingers through his hair and then studied me. His eyes were locked on mine; my fingers stumbled over the piano keys. “The barrier is weak there. That’s where the portal opened, that’s where the Fae came through to feed.”

  “Della Rae was right. She must have seen it happen.”

  “A Voodoo child would be the only soul to see it and get away alive. We’d feast on energy; we’d take our fill of travelers, the misguided. The lost. But when poison rained from the sky and your people destroyed Earth, we were forced to steal what we needed.” He shook his head, his cheeks flushed crimson. “Even that isn’t enough anymore. Your people are dead, ours are dying. The Ascendency finally stepped in with promises of how to save ourselves, that they’d lead us into a new age. But they didn’t. They made energy lotteries and instituted these damn bracelets for energy tracking. They monitor every move we make. They’ve saved nothing. Nobody but their own. And yet, so many hold out hope that they are biding their time; that the thaw will come and with it, the new age. They’re blind to it all. Nothing can save us.”

  “I learned a long time ago you can’t trust the government to save you.”

  “Who do you trust then?”

  I stared down at my hands, my fingers gliding over the keys. Energy radiated up my spine, like my vertebrae were, one by one, catching on fire. I felt heat in my hands, throbbing in my fingertips—

  Throwing my hands outward, palms up, I focused every cell in being on the space above him. The invisible force, current—whatever it was shooting through my hands—caught the iron and bronze chandelier as it fell.

  It hung in the air like an insult.

  Asher’s jaw was slack; he hunched his body down and his shoulders up, huddling down as if that would have saved him if the fixture had fallen free. But I’d seen that ending—I knew what could happen.

  But it didn’t.

  His eyes burned into mine; his energy was palpable. It wasn’t anger or lust or even plain, dull curiosity anymore.

  It was hope.

  Twenty-Six

  We ate dinner like rebels: sitting on top of the ornate, heavy dining room table, the velvet table-runner shoved unceremoniously aside and cracker crumbs scattered everywhere. He couldn’t cook and I didn’t know that kind of magic. Nerys and the other female fae—Raina, according to him, sister to mighty Ralf—were nowhere to be found, so he grabbed hard salami, cheese, crackers, and wine.

  Which, in my opinion, was perfect.

  He motioned at his vest, still draped around my shoulders. “I shouldn’t expect getting that back any time soon, eh?”

  “I’ll trade you for something warmer.” I giggled and took another swig of bitter wine. “I don’t know how you fae manage this perpetual cold. It’s even cold in here.”

  “Our blood is thicker than yours. We’re different.” He glanced down at the cheese wheel, whittling off a thin slice with his knife. “But maybe not so different. Will you play for me again? I enjoyed listening…my, uh…my sister Larah used to play. It was hers. Da bought it for her tenth birthday.”

  I nodded. “Do you play? Music or…games or anything?”

  He cocked up his eyebrows. “Games are for children.”

  “No, no. I mean like football or lacrosse or something; sports.” I plucked a cracker off the plate between us. “What do you do for fun?”

  He reached for the wine bottle. “I can tell you something I used to do for fun until this damn bracelet and Mere’s expectation took the enjoyment out of it.”

  “Okay, first, we promised no more talk of your parents. And second,” I held the bottle just out of his reach, “you should never discuss sex and your mother in the same sentence. I’m sorry, but no. My list of fun to-dos has sex at the top too, but I also play the piano. And before I got to this miserable rock, I was fairly good at planting vegetables. Little sprouts and shit.”

  He chuckled, his lopsided grin reaching right up to his eyes. The green hue was still duller than I remembered, but they sparkled—that, I’d never seen before. He said, “You’re drunk.”

  “Again, no, I’m on my way to being drunk. Stop avoiding the question.”

  “I draw.”

  “Is that fae-speak for give up?”

  He leaned forward, digging his knees into the table, and locked his arm around my waist. With his other hand, he pried the wine bottle out of my grasp. “I draw pictures.”

  I fit perfectly in his arm, cradled against his strong body and broad shoulders, like we were two pieces in the same set. Puzzle pieces, nesting dolls; whatever. I felt as if I’d been made just to be tucked against him.

  Keep it together, Wren.

  He loosened his hold around me and plopped back down in a sitting position. After a deep drink from the bottle, he dragged the back of his arm across his mouth and said, “I think they’re nice pictures, of course. Sketches. Drawings, whatever you want to say. It’s all I’ve done since the last of my siblings died. That whole desk in my room is filled with my papers and books.”

  “I hadn’t noticed.”

  “Liar.” He looked at me seriously, his brows knitted i
nto a frown. After a single breath, his lips quivered and he burst out laughing. “I can read you, Wren, I can see it in your eyes when you tease. The edges crinkle, your right eye squints more than your left. I noticed it when you told Mere we hadn’t had relations because of your monthly. You’re a sassy little bird, you are.”

  I peeled a bit of cheese from the wheel and popped it in my mouth. His grin, perfectly punctuated by his dimple, was intoxicating. I liked the way he looked at me; maybe it was the change in his demeanor, or the fact that he’d saved me and then I’d promptly saved him. I was getting to know the real Asher Coulthurst.

  And damn. I liked him.

  “You’re an adult. At least, in my world you’d be an adult, and there’re just certain things that a parent shouldn’t be asking their adult child. The often-ness of our sourcing is one of them.” I chewed on my bottom lip, taking a moment to try and remember what I’d just said. “Do I have that right? Sourcing? Are fucking and sourcing the same thing?”

  He burst out laughing. “I’ll give a horse if you can get Mere to say fucking.”

  “Sorry, I’m not into fetishes.”

  His laughter was contagious and we sat there, together, just laughing and looking at each other—and then looking at the wine to make sure he wasn’t spilling it. I took it from him and tipped it back for a drink before saying, “So, your parents bought you me—a witch—for a sex slave? Am I right?”

  “I mean, I guess. You make it sound horrid.”

  “Buying people is horrid. Earth banned that practice ages ago and we’ve never looked back.”

  “It’s banned here, too. The Ascendancy knows about the auction houses and they know that humans are brought here—every day—for sale. Fae can source energy from humans just by touching them, so, what happens is that they take them home and chain them in a cellar or a back room, just to feed off of when their energy registers low. Did you sign a paper at the auction house when my father bought you? Before they allowed you to leave?”

  I nodded.

  “That’s an indentured servitude contract. It’s a binding agreement that in exchange for food, warmth, and board, you will be a resource for the family until either your demise or your services are no longer needed, whichever comes first. And you, my lovely, fetched a higher cost because you are a witch.”

  “Wren Richards: witch.” I rolled my eyes and motioned for the wine bottle. “I feel like it’s been painted on my face since I was a child. Like my identity was always witch and me, as a person, didn’t matter.”

  He held the bottle to my lips and tipped it back, gently, until the red wine filled my mouth. He took a long drink and then said, “We can’t source energy by touching you. I can touch your skin all night and nothing will happen.”

  “Well, something might.”

  He chuckled. “The energy reader on my bracelet would never change. The only way we gain energy from witches is from sex. There’s something about it; something with your soul and with the paranormal plain you travel. It’s longer lasting, better energy.”

  “Okay.” He wasn’t telling me anything that I didn’t already know. “So, why didn’t you force me to have sex with you? Get what you needed.”

  “Because I’m not like that.”

  “You tried to hold me down and…get it started. Sort of. I know your bracelet is almost to yellow, so why not just do it? Get what you need and go?”

  “Because I’m not like that.” He repeated. “I didn’t like telling you that I would do whatever—whenever—I wanted to you. It’s bad enough that you have to wake up to this place everyday; that in its own is like defiling you.”

  My cheeks heated up. It was a side of him I hadn’t seen yet or even expected; the still small voice in the back of my mind was ready to throw up defenses, to assume it was a trick to lure me into false hope. Something inside me stirred. A feeling I couldn’t quite put my finger on, but the understanding—the comfort—that this was him at his purest. Asher wasn’t the standoff, angry, loner I’d met the first night in the mansion. He’d opened a part of himself up to me, he’d made himself vulnerable.

  He trusted me. And somehow, even with every all that had been built up in my soul since I was dragged into this faction, I trusted him. Implicitly.

  “We’re out of wine.” He smiled softly, almost sweetly, and balanced the bottle on the edge of the table. “I want to show you something. Come on, we’ll stop in the kitchen and procure more fine, vintage spirits.”

  “Absolutely.”

  He waited while I slid down from the tabletop and to the floor. I was somewhat unsteady on my feet; he draped his arm casually over my shoulder and led me to the furthest most corner of the room. To the right, was a narrow door leading directly into the kitchen. “The only ones you really need to watch out for Geoffrey and Nerys. Geoffrey is one of us, fae, and his family has been in my family’s employ since the First Age. He’s loyal to a fault.”

  “Nerys and I are acquainted.” I leaned closer to him to avoid slamming my hip to a large, iron stove-like contraption. The kitchen was narrow to begin with, but with the cookstove, a 1950s-era refrigerator, a wooden work-table that looked like it belonged in a Civil War field hospital, and an enormous, bronze sink, there was little space to move freely. Everything in the room was piecemeal, like they’d collected it from junk stores and yard sales from here to Distant. Maybe they had.

  “The twins are harmless. Ralf and Raina. They were brought from your world a long time ago and raised in ours. Father bought them originally as companions for my older siblings, but…but it didn’t work out.” He let me go long enough to rummage through a narrow cabinet built into an exterior facing wall, pulling out a bottle. “Ah, yes, the winter of two years ago. A fine time, where we celebrated the multi-millennia anniversary of the start of winter. Splendid.”

  “I’ll drink to that.”

  He uncorked the wine and took a deep drink, then handed it to me. “You’ve never asked if I remember spring?”

  “Do you?” I took a swig from the bottle. Either I was getting drunker or it was a sweeter variety. It was delicious. “It won’t disappoint me either way.”

  “Your world changed with precision, with specific moments in time. Serata wasn’t like that. This faction used to be a direct mirror of earth, or at least, your little corner of it. But things change here differently, at a slower pace. When your population surged, our ability to get energy should have done the same. It didn’t.”

  He was leading me down dark corridors, similar to the one leading to his bedroom, but deeper into the mansion. A hallway abruptly ended: to the left was a staircase. Asher took my hand in his and started upward. I said, “It was because we stopped going outside.”

  “Hmm?”

  His hand was tight around mine, it made it hard to think. “You said before that the fae took the lost, the weary. I know the West Woods and those burned out railroad cars; that entire area was abandoned long before I was born. If that’s where the portal is, then it’s no wonder you couldn’t get energy. No one goes there.”

  “Because of us?”

  “No, because we live in a digital era. People have cell phones and computers. Virtual reality. If someone wants to walk in the woods, they can just put on a VR set and do it from the comfort of their living room. At least,” I shrugged, “they could before the bombs went off. Things are likely more primitive now.”

  “Now your world is poisoned. Your people are dead.” He stopped on the landing and looked at me, his features even more chiseled by candlelight glowing from wall sconces. “What a sad existence. It sounds very lonely.”

  “It’s a different kind of loneliness. But it brought the world closer together and that was a good thing. In the end, though, all the friends in the world couldn’t save us.”

  He started walking again, his hand firm around mine. The staircase narrowed and turned to the right, then bled right into a hallway. I saw a small balcony to the left and then we were back plodding up steps. He
said, “I remember the feeling of grass on my bare feet. Prickly. Annoying. I was just little and I tried to pull my legs up, but Mere set me down right in the courtyard. We had a fountain, then, with four or five big fish and a huge expanse of yard on either side. We flew kites that day.”

  “That was it? One day of spring in twenty-three years?”

  “That’s why no one realized the shortage until it was too late. The seasons were somewhat evenly spaced, I guess, in accordance with the phases of the moon. But then, we noticed there was overlap from one season to the other. Everything was getting shorter—and, at first, it was only by a minute. What’s the harm in losing a minute? And then it was five minutes. Then an hour. And then, the next thing you know, you’re locked in an eternal winter. Everything is dead; even the pureness of snow has abandoned you.”

  “What about the other factions?” I missed my footing on the next step and wobbled; grabbing onto his arm with my free hand. Fuck, he was ridiculously ripped. “I…um…they won’t help?”

  “They suffer their own fate. Reaching them is impossible; the Ascendency tried.”

  “Did they now.” That seemed like the oldest excuse in the book. He seemed to truly believe it—and if that was the case, who was I to judge him? I was jaded. What he experienced as his world died was vastly different than mine and, in that, we still found solace together.

  And I was fine with that.

  We rounded a sharp corner and down a narrow, but high-ceilinged, corridor; at the end was a tall set of white doors. They towered above us, probably eight feet high, and were closed with a heavy, centralized handle. It was circular, almost like a giant moon, and probably was once bronze—now it was faded green.

  He touched the bottle to my lips, urging me to drink more wine. “No one has formally been up here in nearly eighty years. My brothers and sisters and I used to come up here—eventually, I came by myself. I want you to see it.”