by Lan Chan
The atmosphere in Rivia was a far cry from what I was used to. My parents were staying with Basil for the time being, but I had a feeling it would end up being long-term. Like the fens, the sticky taste of ill magic hung in the air here. It wasn’t oppressive like in the fens, but to my human gut instincts, it felt like I should be running in the other direction. The place was up to its eyeballs in wards and sigils.
Every store I passed had a ready-open portal as a getaway just in case. There were as many guards on the street as there were patrons. It was depressing to say the least. And yet, as I made my way to Madame Familiar’s, more than one person I crossed paths with smiled at me.
“That’s so weird,” I muttered. It was no surprise when Diana pulled up next to me.
“Is it?” she asked. “You transmuted the soul of a malachim. And for the first time in six months, they’re angrier than they are scared. The attack on the Reserve was a tipping point. We’ve finally had enough of being pushed around.”
I couldn’t really fathom what she was saying but by then we’d reached the store. The black roses adorning the eaves were in full bloom. They gave off a thick scent of rose laced with something slightly acrid that I remembered from the fens. A demon-repelling agent.
Thankfully, when we stepped inside, it was like nothing had changed. The sweep of sinister magic was blocked out, and I breathed a sigh of relief.
That was until I stepped aside for the statuesque Fae to walk past. She was about seven feet tall with blonde hair that trailed almost to her ankles like a silken sheet. The dress she wore was made of such intricate lace it almost looked like she was wearing liquid armour.
A bit of an inspection of the dresses that were now displayed in the store confirmed my suspicions.
“Wow!” Diana said. She picked up a wicked-looking rapier from the wall beside a light blue gown. Holding the material taut in front of her, she stabbed at it. I expected to see a gaping hole appear in the dress, but no matter how forceful Diana slashed and struck, the dress remained perfect.
Diana tossed the rapier at Anastasia. “Have at it.” She draped the length of the shirt over her torso and Anastasia tried to stab her through it. In the end, the rapier almost bent out of shape.
That was what we were doing when Celine appeared from the back of the store. “Having fun, ladies?” she said, coming up to us.
“Best fun ever!” Diana announced. “I want this in all the colours.”
Celine gave her a gracious smile. “Your father might have other ideas.”
Diana grimaced. “He’s such a tight-ass.”
Celine pulled at her ear. “I seem to recall you tearing the last dress you bought and using it as a rope to climb out of the forbidden chamber.”
Diana’s ears turned pink. “It was just a little bit of fun.”
“I can imagine.” Celine turned to me, her smile warming. “Sophie, my dear. I have exactly what you’re looking for.”
Apprehension flooded my gut. “Umm...I’m not really looking for a dress, per se.”
Her eyes flicked over to Anastasia before she took me by the wrist and led me into the change rooms. “Say no more.”
Oh, I so didn’t want to say anything at all. But she just pushed me into a change room and disappeared. When she returned, it was with starlight in her hands. My jaw dropped. I couldn’t even think about touching it.
She beamed at me. “I’ve been working on it since the moment you returned to the Reserve.” She tried to push it into my arms, but I just stood there like a mute. “Try it on.”
“I don’t think so.” My face flamed at the thought of where such a beautiful piece of art might end up, given what I was planning to do with it. Celine seemed to sense my concern. Her eyes blazed with mischief.
“Try it on,” she urged.
With my skin feeling like it was being heated by invisible flames, I undressed and slipped into the garment. It felt like I was wearing nothing and looked just slightly more than that. The straps that held up the bodice were tied together in bows that would come apart with the slightest tug. Two layers of skirt that was so mini I kept bending over so I didn’t flash myself made up the bottom half of the camisole. The bodice was fitted with scalloping detail that arched upward from my breastbone. And all over it sparkled with the most delicate touch of starlight that I couldn’t help staring at it, transfixed.
The rush of air as someone pushed aside the curtain and broke the locking ward had me squealing. Celine poked her head in.
“What are you doing?” I screamed. Two pairs of wide eyes looked over her shoulder. I could have died right there. I promised never to do it to Lex again. No wonder she had turned into a harpy.
“Wow,” Diana said. “Somebody better prepare a ward in the infirmary because Max is going to have a heart attack.”
“Get out!” I screeched. My skin was so hot it felt like I was burning up from lava in my blood.
“Sophie,” Celine admonished. “It’s nothing to be bashful about.”
“If you don’t leave right now, I’m going to march out of here and never come back.”
Pressing her lips together to stop herself from laughing, she let the curtain drop and then reengaged the spell. I blew out a breath. My jaw locked as all three of them burst out laughing outside the change room. I was never going to live this down.
And yet, I didn’t even consider not buying the garment. Celine pushed the box into my arms.
“My gift to you,” she said.
“No. I can’t.”
“Sophie.” There was that exasperation again. “I’ve spent the last six months making Fae battle gowns. It was a good excuse to remember why I got into this business. Please let me have this bit of relief.”
The way she said the word relief made something flutter in my stomach. How was I supposed to refuse after that? It was only as I was leaving and she opened the curtain to the back room that I caught sight of something soft and heavenly white on the dress mannequin. One that was short enough that I was almost certain I knew who she imagined wearing that dress. “What’s that?” I asked without thinking.
Celine paused. Her arm lowered to cover the opening. “Hope,” she said before nodding her head at me and disappearing.
Hope.
I couldn’t get it out of my head even though I spent most of the day cooking. “Can you mate with me instead?” Diana asked when I forced another appetiser down her throat.
“Maybe in the next life.”
She snorted. “I think Max has called dibs on eternity,” she said with her mouth full.
“Better or worse?”
She grimaced. “At this point, it’s all starting to taste the same.” My face dropped. She made a stalling motion at me. “I mean, it’s delicious, but honestly, you could give him a rotten apple and he’d still eat it and think it’s gourmet.”
I promptly burst into tears.
“Aww jeez, Soph.”
She came around the side of the bench and hugged me. “You’re putting so much pressure on yourself. This is almost as bad as that breakdown you had before the last semester trials. I just meant that it’s all fantastic.”
“You are so full of crap,” I sniffed.
“I think you need to lie down or something.”
“I have heaps of prep to do.”
She eyed the mountains of food and the bubbling cauldron. “I think you’ve done enough. Go!”
I wouldn’t move from the kitchen, so she made me lie down on the day bed that she dragged out of the living area while she cleaned up. Filling a glass with the health elixir and some bubbling ambrosia, she placed the glass in front of my face. “Drink this. You’re probably dehydrated.”
I didn’t think anything of it until my eyes closed for a second. “Diana!”
She made an apologetic face at me. “It’s just for a few hours. You need to rest or you’re going to have an aneurysm. I’ll clean–”
I fell asleep.
When I woke, it was dark outside. Crap!
My limbs still felt heavy, but I was determined to drag myself to the bathroom. The warm spray of the shower worked wonders to clear my head a little. Back in the kitchen I saw that Diana had made everything spotless. The soup was still bubbling, but everything else had been packed away or placed uniformly onto serving dishes.
I smiled at her soldier efficiency.
With nothing else left to do, I went and slipped into the camisole. And then I paced around the bedroom for half an hour, psyching myself up to call Max. I was about to do another lap when something crashed in the kitchen.
The protection circle snapped into place around me. Logic said that inside the Reserve it couldn’t be anything too dangerous, but there was no telling with the threat of the malachim still lurking in the shadows.
And then I heard Andrei groaning. When I stepped into the kitchen, his bloodshot eyes widened. He lurched and massaged his throat before promptly throwing up all over the food I had prepared.
45
On any other day of the year, the first thing that I would have felt was concern. I darted out as soon as I saw his chest convulsing, but I didn’t make it in time to salvage any of the food. My throat locked both from the stench of enchanted alcohol and from the gut-wrenching disappointment.
“I...you...” Words were a concept I couldn’t quite grasp at the moment. Six hours of labour down the drain.
Andrei cast a disparaging eye over the mess he’d made. Then he staggered to the side, caught himself using the bench top, and took another swig of purple liquid from a squat bottle with a crystal at the base.
“Jeez, cupcake,” he said. “You really didn’t need to go through all this trouble for me.”
The tray that I tossed at his head only just narrowly missed its mark. “You selfish jerk!” I screamed. “Is that all you can say?”
He ducked his head, laughing cruelly. His eyes were unfocused. There was a gash across his expensive grey shirt that was still glowing with silver angelfire. He stumbled forward, stuck his fingers in his own spew, and fished out a mini quiche. He shook it vigorously, managing to make more mess, and handed it to me.
“There you go,” he slurred. “All better.”
I was going to wring his neck. Casting around for a weapon, I picked up the iron poker from the fireplace. Iron wasn’t particularly useful on vampires, but the tip was new and sharp. His grin only fuelled the fire in me.
“C’mon,” he said. “I came here for a shoulder to cry on.” His gaze tracked to the bows on either of my shoulders. Red bled into his irises. “You know, I never noticed how cute you are. Sure you want to hold out for Fur-Face?” It was the mocking in his voice that sent my fury skyrocketing.
“Oh, and you think you’re some kind of prize?” I snapped. “Let me guess, you’ve pissed Astrid off and she told you to get lost, and now you’re sulking?”
His features darkened as the red began to saturate the rest of his eyes. I didn’t care that I was butting heads with a vampire. When his canines elongated and I saw that they were washed in blood, I knew how close to the edge he really was. But the more fresh blood he had in his system, the more vulnerable he was to my alchemy.
He knew it too, because instead of attacking me, he crumbled the bench in his palms. “Stop it!” I screamed.
“What’s the matter?” he asked, taunting me. “Don’t want to ruin your perfect little paradise?”
I wanted to kill him. I was going to kill him. After all the time we’d spent together, he didn’t have the slightest consideration for how important this was to me. Or how truly frightened I was. And yet, he just kept standing there watching me. His blood-soaked eyes were so full of an emotion that I couldn’t quite place.
My rage fizzled a little. “What did you do?” I asked.
Though I didn’t really want to hear it, getting it out of him was probably the fastest way to get him to leave.
“No thanks,” he said. “I don’t need pity friendship!”
I threw my arms in the air. “Then what do you want from me, Andrei? Why did you really come here? I know you’re not totally selfish, despite all evidence to the contrary.”
“Oh well, when you say such nice things, why wouldn’t I want to talk to you?”
I breathed through my nose and sank into the Ley dimension. His aura was simmering with such self-loathing that it was impossible to ignore him now. The crimson shell around its core was fluctuating rapidly as a result of all that enhanced alcohol he had ingested. But at his very core, he was in a great deal of pain. I could only guess at what the root of the problem was.
“You’re not Kai,” I said when I flicked my eyes open. “You never will be.” His cheek twitched. His top lip curled over those white teeth that were suddenly wickedly sharp. “But that’s not necessarily a bad thing. You are your own person. You can’t keep spending your life living in his shadow and hating him for your choices.”
He lashed out. Sticking his hand into the smaller hearth, he grabbed the handle of the cauldron. It was all kinds of stupid. “Andrei!”
The heat of the burning metal scalded his hand. He gave a pained roar and hauled the cauldron out, throwing it through the window to my left. I jumped back a mile as glass shattered. A piece of the window frame cracked as the cauldron swiped it. Glass belched everywhere. Pain sliced into my arm as I threw them over my head to protect my face. I screamed as I tried to leap over the mess of glass on the floor. It cut into the soles of my feet. I winced. He appeared beside me via teleport.
Giving up his liquor prize, he wrapped his arm around me and teleported us away. I had no idea whether he did it on purpose or if his head was all screwy from his breakdown, but when we came through on the other side of the teleport, we weren’t inside the house anymore.
Cries of surprise and growls of anger filled the air. I landed on my back in the grass with Andrei wrapped firmly around me. The scent of barbecue and burned sugar hung in the air. We had landed smack bang in the middle of the conference room field.
The bow on my right was half hanging off my shoulder. The already short skirt was somewhere around my hips. Andrei, the bastard, grabbed hold of the skirt and dragged it down. I imagined he thought he was doing me some kind of favour but he was too forceful. The tug ripped the camisole down my chest, exposing the top curve of my breasts.
A roar filled the night air with a menace so pervasive I felt my bladder loosening. “Shit!” Andrei spat. He teleported us back to the house. We came through on the other side with the sound of his incredulous laughter ringing in my ears. It did nothing to dampen the residual sweep of Max’s rage.
“Get out!” I shouted.
“Now, now,” Andrei said, “is that any way to talk to a guest you’ve already insulted?”
“Andrei!” I shoved at him. “Go! If Max catches you he’ll–”
The side wall disintegrated. Max exploded into the kitchen, a look of pure death in his eyes. They had gone black again as wild madness took over. No other part of him had shifted just yet. He didn’t need to for the wave of aggression to slap at me. The mating link was a ball of golden spikes, spinning out of control.
“Oh well,” Andrei said. “May as well make it count.” He didn’t even graze me when he sank his mouth over my exposed shoulder and pretended to bite. Max’s leash snapped. He went flying over the broken bench top, destroyed the last of the food, and snatched Andrei around the throat.
The vampire didn’t struggle at first. It was a fraction of a second before he realised that he wasn’t teleporting. Lightning rolled around Max’s limbs as his body counteracted the celestial magic that was imbued into Gabriel’s Key. Eventually it would succeed but it would take time. Andrei would be dead before then.
The vampire choked as Max squeezed his neck. I heard bones cracking. Capillaries burst in Andrei’s eyes as Max slammed his back against the double doors of the ingredients closet. It bucked under Max’s strength. I heard glass cracking inside. I realised then that if Max wanted to kill him, An
drei would already be dead. Right now, he just wanted to inflict as much pain as possible.
Sinking into the mating link, I threw a circle around Max and used all of the strength of my alchemy to dampen his blows. It wasn’t much, but the tug of my magic gave him a second’s pause. A second was all Andrei needed to teleport the heck out of there.
He had the audacity to wink at me before he disappeared.
Max whirled around. His nostrils flared as they sifted through the various scents in the room. Savoury and sweet notes overlayed with vomit and the choking fumes of enchanted alcohol. Over the top of that was probably the apprehension sloughing off me and the metallic scent of my blood where I’d cut myself.
“What did you do?” he said. His voice was like steel honed in fire. Hot, hard, angry.
“Nothing.”
One minute he was on the other side of the room. The next, he was right in front of me, a wall of pure shifter rage. “I can smell him all over you.”
“It’s not what you think.”
He roared right in my ear. The urge to curl up in a ball and tremble was overwhelming. When I flinched, it only just stoked his fury.
“He’s dead,” Max said with a finality that I didn’t doubt for a second.
“Don’t you dare.”
He punched the wall behind my back. It fell to pieces. I jumped and landed squarely against his chest. His nostrils flared again. This time he dipped his head and inhaled close to my shoulder where Andrei had essentially kissed me. The hand that wrapped around my arm was a vise. He hauled me behind him towards the bathroom. I saw his intention to throw me under the shower. We passed by the mirror in the hallway, and I caught sight of us. Max with his mad golden eyes and me with leaves in my hair and blood trickling down my cheek. It was absolutely the opposite of how I had hoped this would go.
The disappointment ignited a fire under my own cauldron of fury. “Get your hands off me!” I screamed.
He only pulled harder. My rage detonated as we crossed the threshold of the bathroom. I grabbed onto the mating link, funnelled it into a blade with my alchemy, and stabbed him through the chest with it.