Claimed: Faction 3: The Isa Fae Collection

by Heather Hambel Curley

  The tires squealed and the vehicle fishtailed, swerving and swaying across the road until it plunged headfirst into a snow drift. The car abruptly stopped.

  The man on top of me, though, kept going. He flipped over the front seats and slammed against the dashboard. Neither he or the driver had time to react, the front door was flung open. Asher.

  He yanked the driver out and flung him to the ground. Circling the car to the passenger’s side, he reached in and dragged the other man out by his throat. “Give me one good reason why I should fucking let you live.”

  “You think we’re scared of you? The grand archduke?” The driver snorted. “You love this little witch? A useless human? She could be saving us all, instead she catering to you.”

  “You’re fucking right I love her.” Asher reached over his shoulder and yanked a shotgun out of a strap. He pumped the front and aimed it at the driver’s head. “And I’ll do everything in my power to keep her safe.”

  The man who attacked me held up his hands; I could see his fingers shaking. “Even kill us? Since when have Coulthursts had those kind of balls? Not since your grandfather’s reign, maybe before. You can’t do it.”

  “You’re right. Maybe I can’t.” Asher lowered the shotgun and stepped aside. “But my friend here can.”

  He held the shotgun out to one side. A man stepped out from behind the vehicle and threw his hood back. Kane.

  “Jesus Christ.” I stared at him, looking between him and Asher. They were saving me; for the first time in my life, someone valued me enough to rescue me. To care for me.

  Kane lowered the gun at the first man. I looked away.

  One blast. The gun pumped again and I heard the other man pleading, begging for Kane to thing it through.

  He pulled the trigger again.

  The car door jerked open and I opened my eyes: it was Asher. I threw myself into his arms and crushed my mouth to his. “You saved me. I can’t believe you came after me.”

  “I’ll always come after you, beautiful. I love you.” He scooped me up and pulled me out of the car. Setting me down carefully, as if he thought my legs were going to crumble beneath me, he cradled my face in his hands. “Are you okay? Did he hurt you?”

  “He tried. But I’m fine, you got here in time.” I paused. “How?”

  “Not to brag, but it was us.” Kane handed the shotgun to Asher and then looked at me, raising his eyebrow up. “Aren’t you cold?”

  “Actually, yes, thanks for asking.”

  Kane shrugged. “I’m going to get these two off the road. We’ll meet up with Bastien and Palmer in the city. We do it now, Asher, now or it’s not happening.”

  I clung to Asher, burying my face against his shoulder. “What’s not happening?”

  “Bastian’s RISE plan. Apparently, we missed the infiltrate portion.” He leaned over and kissed the top of my head. “Kane says we’re on seize. The underground is going to take Durostu House tonight—by force.”

  “You could have joined us for infiltrate. But apparently you two were too busy fucking.” Kane leaned into the car and pulled the trunk release, then circled back around the car. He batted his eyelashes at me. “The witch and the boy with the most beautiful green eyes in the world.”

  I rolled my eyes.

  There was nothing in the trunk that either Asher or Kane deemed of any use, so we left the car as it was, instead opting for the speed and maneuverability of their motorcycles. I grabbed Asher’s shoulder, turning him to look face me. “Hey.”

  “Yeah, beautiful?”

  I stood up on my tiptoes and pressed my lips to his. “Thank you. You didn’t have to come after me, but you did.”

  “Of course I had to come after you; I love you.” He pulled me close, wrapping his arms around me. “What do you say, once this is all over, we get married again? For real this time, for love?”

  “Absolutely.”

  He kissed me again; as it deepened, something smacked against us. I opened my eyes and looked down. Kane’s jacket.

  Asher and I looked at him.

  He shrugged. “I can only take so much of that shit. Put this on and let’s get the fuck out of here.”

  I climbed on the back of Asher’s bike and held myself tight to him. So, this was it. A world I didn’t care about, a government I had no interest in—we were going to overthrow them. Bring them down. Was I actually prepared to fight—maybe die—for people who kidnapped me; who humiliated and sold me?

  Asher suddenly cupped his hand over mine, lifting my palm to his lips. He nuzzled his face against my fingers and then pressed it back to his chest. The boy with the most beautiful green eyes in the world.

  Damn right I was ready to fight for him. I didn’t have to love him—but I did. Every fiber of my soul, every cell in my body, adored him. Our souls were bound together, every struggled, every awful thing in my life led me to him. That’s what I was ready to fight for, that right to choose. To love.

  Kane maneuvered his motorcycle across a bridge and down both narrow lanes and wide highways—or, what I assumed—had once been highways. Asher stayed close behind him, his body surprisingly relaxed on the bike. It all seemed out of place; I wanted to be laying in bed with him, pressing my fingertip into his dimple and watching him sketch. That was my heaven; my paradise. Not Serata, not even Earth. Just our own little world, wherever we made it.

  Gradually, we entered the outskirts of a town. The sidewalks were empty, the buildings stoic and silent. Ahead on a hill, though, a radiant house—ivory white with a green roof—gleamed and shimmered with light. I had no idea where we were but I knew, without a doubt, that had to be Durostu House: the seat of the Ascendency.

  Kane slowed his bike down and waited for us. He motioned ahead. “Palmer and Bastien are at the Fig and Flower.”

  Asher snorted. “An energy brothel, how fitting.”

  “Joy-Again went ahead with a group from the west, renegades or hired goons or some shit. They fought their own fight ages ago—fuck, they’re already in spring. Once we get her signal, we move.”

  “Do you all actually have a plan?” I adjusted my arms around Asher’s waist, pressing my body to his back. “Or, are you just going to, like, catapult yourselves in and hope for the best?”

  “We have guidelines.” Kane shrugged. “Seize. Empower. Emancipate. See? Haha, get it, SEE? I should be a general or something.”

  “There’s no way any of this can go wrong.” Asher urged the bike forward, taking lead from Kane. We drove down another two streets until we reached a two story, stone and marble building. A burned out electric sign jutted out from one wall: The Fig and the Flower.

  “This is the Silver City?” I climbed off the bike, trying to steady myself from shaking. I was terrified. “Does anyone live here anymore?”

  “In the First Age of the Fae, it was considered the most radiant city in all of Serata. By the Second Age, the lights had dimmed and most of it turned to stone. The ice came later.” Asher pulled my hand into his, lacing his fingers tightly around mine. “Stay close.”

  We entered the building. I abruptly stopped; I almost crashed into a stone figure, a voluptuous, highly detailed statue of a dancing girl. She was bare breasted, her arms adorned with bracelets and her fingers heavy with rings. Her head was gone.

  Asher gently pulled me around it. “Everything turned to stone.”

  Jesus.

  The Fig and Flower was run down and dilapidated, the marble floors covered with dust and most the fabric wall coverings hanging limply down like death shrouds. Footprints in the dust made a solid trail through the first room and into the next; we followed them.

  Men and women were gathered in the room, it was loud and raucous. There was hardly any room to squeeze in and even less room to find someone if we needed too. Luckily, we had Kane: he shoved in behind up and jammed his fingers into his mouth. A shrill whistle silenced the room.

  He grinned. “Bastien, you bastard. I’ve got the archduke and his girl.”

/>   “God, Kane, really.” Asher groaned.

  “They’re in love.” Kane draped his arms over us, grinning stupidly. “Are you ready?”

  There was commotion at the front of the room—or the back, I wasn’t really sure what kind of set-up I was looking at—and Bastien scrambled up on a table. “Asher and Wren Coulthurst, you beautiful kids! So, you’re ready to fight the good fight, eh? Seize—I heard you missed Infiltrate because—“

  “We get it.” Asher waved his hand dismissively. “What’s the plan?”

  “We take Durostu House. We free the Silver City.” Another man crawled up on the table next to Bastien; I assumed it was Palmer, who’d they’d all talked about. “We already have members of the underground assembling on the hill. The Ascendency is in session already, they’ve barred the gate. But we’ll get through.”

  The crowed cheered.

  I shifted my weight from one foot to the other. That wasn’t exactly a plan, that was a call to rebellion.

  Palmer pointed through the crowd, his finger directly aiming at Asher. “And you, Archduke Coulthurst. You will help us make the wrongs of this world right.”

  Asher raised his eyebrows and looked away. “We’ll see about that part, I might be…otherwise preoccupied.”

  I heard a shout in the crowd. It was deep in the throngs of people—and then I heard it again. The crowd started to shift, to move back and forth as somebody shoved their way through it.

  And this tie, when the person yelled again, I understood. It was a woman: she was calling my name.

  A thin girl, shorter than me, and with close cropped blonde hair, tumbled out of the crowd. She was dressed in a flimsy, fake leather minidress, her arms and legs rough with scars. Tears streamed down her face. “Wren!”

  It was Soleil.

  I ran to her, throwing my arms around her and holding her in a tight hug. She was sobbing, her thin body shaking. Between her tears, she was rambling, talking and crying and trying to explain some long, grand story. I shook my head and held her out at arms length. “It’s okay.”

  The look in her eyes was like a skittish cat, ready to run from fright. She shook her head, her lower lip quivering. “I should have listened to you. You were right. All of this was my fault.”

  “No. Stop. No more blaming, no more excuses.” I hugged her again. “This is a new start. A new beginning.”

  “You don’t know what they did to me. This…” She looked away. “This is where they brought me after the auction.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “Physically…for the most part.” She held her chin up. “The rest will heal, in time.”

  “Then we do this. We follow them and we survive. That’s been our goal since the first bomb hit, right?”

  She smiled and then tilted her head to the side, looking behind me. Her eyebrow arched up. “Who’s he?”

  “That’s Asher.” I winked at him. “My soul is bound to his—I’m going to marry him.”

  “His eyes are so green.”

  “Mine are green, too.” Kane blurted out. His cheeks turned red. “I’m Kane.”

  “I’m Soleil.”

  He pointed between us, moving his finger back and forth. “So, do you two know each other?”

  I rolled my eyes. “She’s my sister.”

  “Yeah? For how long?”

  “There’s the signal!” Bastien thrust his arms into the air, rotating his left arm around like he was swinging a lasso. We march!”

  Asher grabbed my hand and pulled me close. “If you two want to stay, we’ll understand.”

  I shook my head. “Where you go, I go.”

  “And you aren’t leaving me again.” Soleil grabbed my other hand and then peered over her shoulder. “Does that mean I have to be his partner…or teammate or something?”

  Kane said, “Yes.”

  “Absolutely not.” Asher smiled at her, briefly resting his head against mine. “I’d recommend running in the opposite direction of him.”

  Soleil laughed.

  “Yeah, keep it up. Soleil and I will remember this when you need our help.” Kane clapped his hand on Asher’s shoulder. “Right, Soleil?”

  “She’s not interested, Kane.”

  “You don’t know that. You’re an archduke, not a mind reader. Soleil, tell him.”

  And for the first time in a long time, my sister smiled straight from her soul.

  Thirty-One

  The walk to Durostu House took far less time than I wanted; I was ready for a hike over three mountains and across a sinking valley or never ending sea. That wasn’t the case. It must have been some kind of record, it only took around fifteen minutes to walk from the brothel to the building. Someone in the underground must have read a book on the art of war, because the rebels were sent inside in waves. Fresh troops, always moving. Always more pouring in.

  And then, it was our turn. Palmer, Bastien, Asher, Soleil, Kane, and myself: we ran inside with the rest of our wave. Our fellow fighters, the unarmed. The claimed.

  There were waiting for us at the end of the drive: the remnants of the Ascendency’s army. They saw us coming—someone screamed a command.

  A blast of gunshots rang out in the dying sunlight. I held my hands out in front of me, gathering energy from my soul—fueled by the love I had for Asher and my sister—and threw an energy burst out in front of us. It slammed into the bullets; they dropped harmlessly to the ground below. Sweeping my arm out, I used my power to throw anything that wasn’t bolted down—broken glass, rocks, discarded metal—into their faces.

  Soleil eyes rolled into the back of her head, the whites of her eyes burning white hot. The ice and snow around us burst into the air, swirling around like a tornado. All at once, it flung down on top of the soldiers.

  We hit them head on. Soleil’s storm had disoriented them; Kane and Asher went low, they attacked like vipers, moving and doubling back, circling around again from a different angle.

  Soleil dropped to the ground, dragging her fist in a circular motion in the mud: she drew a circle. “Wren, here!”

  “Lux!” Light burst out of my palm; the man blocking my path doubled over and screamed, he clawed at this eyes. Palmer was beside me in an instant. He aimed his rifle at the man’s head and fired.

  I ran to my sister and jumped into her circle. She started casting the spell—but then, through the fighting and the struggling, I saw Kane fall.

  I jumped out of the circle.

  “Wren, no!”

  I ran across the wet ground, dodging and jumping out of people’s way, out of the reach of swords and knives. As I got closer, I focused on Kane’s attacker, on the spike he was getting ready to drive squarely into Kane’s temple. I jerked my hand up—

  The spike flung away from the attacker. He looked around gaping, panicked.

  Kane curled up into an upright position, holding is hand out. I heard a gun fire.

  His attacker dropped.

  Kane spun around and saw me. He grinned. “I thought you didn’t like me, Little Girl?”

  “Yeah, well, something tells me that saving you was a good idea.” I shoved past him, stepping over the motionless body of his attacker, and ran to Asher. He was cleaning his knife off in the grass; when he saw me, he dropped it and rushed to my side.

  “God, you’re okay.” He kissed me. “I lost sight of you almost right away. You had me worried.”

  “Just keeping an eye on Kane. You know, like he’s a child.”

  Soleil walked up to us; her cheeks flushed pink. I hadn’t seen her look this alive, this full of spirit in…well, in forever. “You saved him.”

  I nuzzled my face against Asher’s and then looked at her. “What?”

  “Kane. You left the circle to save him.”

  “He’d do the same for me.”

  She didn’t say anything. She looked thoughtful, chewing on the inside of her lip like she was debating something.

  We’d lost a few on our side, but not enough to stop us. We kept go
ing, always moving forward. The gates to the house were already flung open. Some kind of melee must have taken place here too—maybe several times—and the injured were everywhere. Dead and dying, mangled and bleeding; it was impossible to reach the stair case without stepping on one.

  “Joy-Again!” Bastien picked his way across the circular shaped foyer and dropped to his knees. “Palmer, she’s hurt.”

  We followed him to her side; her patch was gone and the side of her face was bloodied, a huge gash spreading from her temple to her chin. Blood poured from a stab-wound in her side; I could hear the wheeze and rattle in her throat. The lung likely collapsed. She managed to smile, reaching her bloody hand out to me. “I knew your love was pure.”

  “I adore him.” I took her hand in mine and squeezed it. There was no strength in her return movement; it was like she barely flexed her fingers. “You’re going to be okay, Joy-Again. We’re going to get through this.”

  “You make babies with that man, green-eyed witches with curly brown hair and dimples.” She started coughing, her eyes welling up with tears. “I figured it out, you know, the reason you two are like lanterns in the dark. It’s not that he’s an archduke, it’s not that you’re a witch. It was love. That’s all that can save us.”

  Soleil pushed past Bastien and sank down beside her. She pressed her hands to Joy-Again’s chest, plugging the hole with her fingers. Eyes fluttering she mumbled something under her breath. And then she spoke to me, “Finish this, Wren. I’ll stay here and help the others, but you need to go. This is why I lived—to help them survive.”

  Kane put his hand on her shoulder. “I’ll stay with her. With then.”

  I nodded. As I turned to walk away, Soleil grabbed onto my coat. “Wren, wait. I was wrong about you. You aren’t selfish. You’re brave and strong and…and I only hope that I live through this so I can learn to be more like you. I’m proud of you.”

  My eyes filled with tears. I blinked them back and smiled at her. “Just be you, Soleil. We’re sisters—we should learn to be more like each other.”

  Leaving her and Kane behind, Asher and I climbed the bloodstained steps and circled around the upper balcony. I looked across the foyer and, on the opposite side, Palmer and Bastien were doing the same. I wasn’t sure what we were looking for, or who—but I had a feeling they were close.