His eyes widened in surprise. “You’d really do that?”
I nudged him with my elbow. “What were you expecting me to do?”
“Honestly, I have no idea. I just couldn’t tell you no when you looked at me with those big pleading eyes of yours.”
My heart skipped a beat or two. Could he possible still be attracted to me even though the idea of me being a dark fairy repulsed him?
“Let me bring you in to meet my family and then I’ll show you where our water comes from.”
Great. Just who I didn’t want to meet.
We trudged down a rocky hill, and I had to hold onto Michael’s arms to keep from losing my footing on the loose rocks. Touching his warm skin sent a thrill through me. I had to pull myself together. Too much was at stake. My focus right now had to be on convincing Michael that the offspring were a good idea. Not on how his muscles rippled when he moved, or the way he seemed to still be seeing me, Tulupea, when he looked at me and not the form I’d taken on as a human. Being near him made me feel alive in a way I hadn’t known until now.
Once we reached the bottom of the rough terrain, we climbed over large boulders until we stood before what appeared to be the opening of a cavern. I could hear muffled voices in the distance.
Michael stopped and turned toward me. “Are you sure you want to do this?”
“Yeah.” What other choice did I have?
He draped his arm around my shoulder and pulled me into him. My eyes widened in surprise. And then I remembered what he’d said earlier about there not being many females in the area. He was putting on an act, and I had to play along. It was easier than I would have thought to melt my body into his. The warmth of his skin sent a wave of calm through me.
As soon as we stepped through the cave, heads snapped up. Michael hadn’t been kidding; I only saw a couple of women and about a dozen or more men. They were all focused on me, making me very uncomfortable.
I really hoped I didn’t have to access my magick in here. But there was no way I would allow someone to harm me.
One of the women stepped forward. Her hair was long and dirty, braided to keep out of her face which was sunken and her eyes vacant. My skin prickled. “Michael what do you have here?”
“Mom, this is Sarah. I found her wandering and brought her in to have something to eat. I hope that’s okay?”
The woman grunted. One of the men came forward. He was large and had the same color eyes as Michael, his hair receded, but the resemblance was unmistakable. He extended his hand and I grabbed the rough, strong hand in my own. “Sarah, it’s a pleasure.” His voice was smooth, inviting.
I found I liked this man even though I knew he was in charge of the rebellion. His manner was charismatic. Even in this short introduction I could see how he could rally a crowd.
“Thank you.” I glanced down at the ground.
Chapter 12
Michael tightened his grip on my shoulder. Everything about this was strange. I felt dirty and wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible. I wanted to be back with my mother and her guards but I was the one that came up with this hair-brained idea and now I had to see it through.
Everyone in the cave moved forward to get a better look. I felt like I was on display and not in a good way. The men looked at me hungrily making me feel like prey. I had to force myself to take a breath.
“Michael, you know you gotta share your goods.” One of the men came closer, and I saw that his eyes had a glassy look about them that made the hairs on my neck stand on ends. It took all of my self-control not to drop him to the ground.
“Touch her and you die.” Michael’s voice was laced with venom.
My breath caught in my throat. I glanced up. His face was set in stone.
Unfortunately, this guy didn’t give in as easily as his brother. He reached out and grabbed my arm to pull me into him. Michael had a hold of my shoulder so I was being pulled in both directions. My magick stirred, begging to be released. “Let go of me!” I demanded.
Laughter filled the cave. I felt sick to my stomach. So this was how they treated women? Like property to be passed around? I attempted to yank my arm back, but the man’s fingers dug into my flesh.
With his left hand Michael pulled back and landed a crushing blow to the side of the man’s face. Momentarily stunning the man, he let go of my arm. I retreated back a couple of steps. Now his attention was focused only on Michael. I glanced around at the crowd of people. Their eyes were lit with excitement. It became increasingly clear that no one was going to try to stop the fight or come to my rescue. They were enjoying it too much.
Michael let go of my arm without looking at me. I could feel the anger radiating off of him in waves. I couldn’t use my magick, but I could transmit some of it to Michael.
I sent him a burst of strength and in a flurry of motions Michael and the other guy were going at it. They bounced around, circling each other like wild animals. When Michael landed a punch, the man staggered from the power of it. I bit back my smile.
Even though the guy outweighed Michael by a good forty pounds I knew he didn’t stand a chance.
The next punch laid the guy out flat. Knocked out cold.
Michael looked down at the man and back at me with a raised brow. He was still buzzing from the adrenaline rush, but he was also surprised. He let his gaze fall to each man in the room. “She’s mine.”
The others began to back away and went back to doing what they were doing before we walked in. The only ones who stayed were his parents.
His father gave Michael an appraising glance. “It’s about time you manned up. Too bad it took a sweet little thing like this to get you to put away your dresses and act like a man instead of a sissy.”
My mouth dropped open. Oh no, he didn’t.
“Tom, leave him alone,” the mother said so low I could barely hear her.
His thin smile turned into a smirk.
Unable to contain myself any longer. I straightened and glared at his father. “It might come as a surprise to you, but I’m my own person. I don’t belong to your son or anyone else. I came here willingly and I’m more than capable of taking care of myself. How else do you think I survived this long on my own?”
Michael sucked in a breath. I knew he was worried I would unleash my power but that was not my intention. However, I also wasn’t going to let this fool talk to me or Michael in such a way.
At first his father didn’t respond, at least not overtly. Then he took a step forward, he was so close I could smell his foul breath. A bead of sweat shimmered on his forehead. There was a look of lust in his eyes that I didn’t like. His hand reached out and he trailed his thumb down the side of my face. A shudder of disgust ran through my body like liquid fire. “You’ve got spirit, girl. You’re too good for my boy.”
I smacked his hand away and he grabbed my wrist yanking me forward. Head low Michael lunged after us, but the rest of the men leapt forward holding him back.
I was drug through the cave away from the others. Glancing back I locked eyes with the mother, she shrugged and glanced away.
Oh shit.
I tried with all my might to yank my arm away but his grip only tightened. A sick smile spread across his face. He was moving too fast for my feet to keep up. He threw me into a darkened corner of the cave. I scurried backwards on the ground trying to get back on my feet. I could hear Michael’s voice rising.
Please, let him get through. I sent him another surge of power.
If Michael could not save me I would have to save myself, alerting the others to my powers. And then I would have to take down the whole tribe because they would not let me leave alive. Of this much, I was certain. Why hadn’t I listened to my mother?
The weight of his body pressed down on me. I gasped when his knees forced my legs apart. I jerked my hips to get him off of me but all that did was make him laugh. “Such a beauty. Much too good for that no good son of mine.”
Rage welled up inside of m
e. Just when I was about to release my power, his father’s body jerked off mine. His feet got tangled with my own pulling off my shoes.
“You’re a disgrace,” Michael yelled, slamming his fist into his father’s face. “You make me sick,” he screamed.
I rose to my feet, more shaken than I’d liked to admit, and smoothed down my shirt.
His father stumbled to his feet, his eyes blazing, and launched at Michael. They sparred, each getting in a few hits before Michael’s fist connected in a crunch to his father’s jaw. I knew it was broken. Fueled by my magick, Michael lifted his father in the air and tossed him against the wall. His body thunked against the rocks and slid to the floor in a heap.
This was not how I’d envisioned this meeting taking place.
I called forth my power and did something I probably shouldn’t have done, but I didn’t see any other way out of this mess. Using my power I froze everyone in their place. His father’s face was frozen in alarm. I weaved in a time of twenty-three minutes before they would awaken. When they came to they wouldn’t recall the last half hour. I wasn’t sure how far the magick would reach. So it was possible his brother would remember us approaching, but it was the best option I had right now.
Loathe to do it, I reached out and placed my hand on his father’s jaw, instantly healing the broken bones and reducing any swelling.
Grabbing Michael’s hand I pulled him out of the cavern. “Where’s the water supply? We need to hurry.”
With wide eyes Michael stared down at me. “You’re still going to help them after what they did to you?”
I glanced back at the cave over my shoulder, debating. “Yes, I saw signs of children. They should have a chance to thrive.” I forced a smile. “Plus you live here.”
He shook his head. “I don’t know if I can come back after this.”
“They won’t remember,” I said gently.
“But I will. They are savages. No better than the darkness they are trying to keep out.”
My heart pounded in my chest.
I didn’t know what to say to that so I reminded him we had to hurry. We climbed over rocks and slid down to the bottom of a ravine. Their water source, which was a gurgling creek bed, was in surprisingly good shape. I sunk to my knees and dunked my hands into the water. Mentally I envisioned restoring the molecules and infused them with healing energy. When I was satisfied, I rose to my feet and shook off my hands, wiping them on my pant legs.
Michael watched me carefully, as if he were afraid I was going to fall apart at any moment. And maybe I would. I’d never had to deal with anything like that before. As a princess I was highly revered in my land. No one would dare try to force themselves on me. I took a shaky breath to clear my mind.
Crossing the distance between us, he put one of his hands behind my head and drew me against him. I dropped my head on his chest. I could feel the heat emanating from his body. His touch was warm and comforting and I didn’t want to move away from it.
When his lips brushed my forehead my pulse began to sky rocket.
“My god, I thought…” he whispered.
Swallowing to ease the tightness of my throat, I pulled back to look up at him. “We should really get out of here.”
He nodded. “I’m really sorry, Tulupea. I knew how they were, but I didn’t think anything like this would happen while you were with me. I should have known better.” The despair was evident in his voice.
I laid my hand on his chest and a shudder went through him.
“If anything would have happened to you—because of me,“his voice broke.
Nothing would have happened to me, but he still didn’t quite grasp the enormity of my power. True, I’d been shaken, but I never doubted my ability to get out of the situation unharmed. Still, I understood what he meant and his concern touched me.
His hand closed on top of mine. I looked down at our joined hands. It felt warm, nice, right.
“I want to go through with the merging. I’m sorry I doubted you.”
He looked down at the water and back at me. “Let’s get back to your place and tell Henrek to get started as soon as possible. And Tulupea, change back into your true form. I don’t like that you have to pretend to be someone else to be with me.”
I let go of a breath I wasn’t aware I was holding and smiled up at him.
Together we quickly made our way back to my mother.
~*~
Find all Julia’s book s at AMAZON! Discover a hidden magical world in her Keegan’s Chronicles series—Book 1: Coexist
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~*~
~FAERY TALES CONTENTS~
THE MORRIGAN
THE SWAY
HOW TO BABYSIT A CHANGELING
FAELEAHN
WITHOUT ARMOR
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FAERY WORLDS
FAERY REALMS
WITHOUT ARMOR
(Elemental Fire)
A Dark Faerie Tale Series Story
The Unseelie are up to no good…
My name is Benton, and I hunt the darkest of creatures in existence.
Especially when they get unruly and try to invade my home, the human realm.
Betrayal, broken hearts and uncharted magic…I never saw it coming.
Without Armor
(Elemental Fire)
A Dark Faerie Tale Series Story
Copyright © May 2015 Alexia Purdy
All rights reserved
www.alexiapurdybooks.com
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Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
About the Author
Chapter One
No one ever stands in a cemetery at midnight, puffing out a breath in mid-winter while the snowflakes gathered at the tips of their eyelashes. I could feel the cold, like a dusting of frost on my nose and breath, but it didn’t truly bother me unless I let it. The fire within kept the chill at bay, melting the crystallizing coat of ice off my skin within milliseconds. It clung to my coat, where my heat did not reach and sorely attempted to gather enough to bury me in its frozen embrace. Yet, here I was…standing in the middle of Yeat’s Cemetery, hoping to find what I was looking for.
If I knew what exactly I was looking for, that is.
You see, somehow I got wind of a small gathering of Unseelie Faeries here, at the edge of the city of Newark where the houses were sparse and the slums grew as the months rolled by. Near a failed school project, houses stood empty; boarded up and overgrown in their left to the wild yards along with the spray of graffiti decorating their ragged edges. I could hear the echoes of the past inhabitants roaming the now empty halls of this graveyard of homes. Each one glared down at me through the darkened windows like I was intruding, like holes into the building's consciousness. Stepping on hallowed ground where only the ghosts of the past could wander.
I was not welcomed, that I could tell right away. But it wasn’t the empty souls of houses and ghosts of the pasts filled with families, joys, celebrations and laughter that had my senses perked to the extreme alertness. No…it was the other creatures who roamed this empty scar of a town and who were far from being human.
; The banished Unseelie were everywhere. I’d already spent months tracking thousands of them down, one by one returning them to the boundaries of the Land of Faerie for judgment by the land itself, entrapping them within its reach, never to step foot into the human world again.
Or…I would cut them down where they stood if they dared try to resist. Nothing lost actually. If they had the unfortunate luck to cross my path, most didn’t survive the trip back to Faerie anyway.
I wasn’t a faery, but I wasn’t just a human either. I was trapped between both worlds; the mundane, or what humans thought of as normal, and the fantastical, magic filled one. I wasn’t truly part of either. My human heritage marked me as such, but my magic was elemental: not faery, not normal. Of earth, yes, but not so ordinary. You see, I could wield my element with enhanced strength, speed and agility. More so than any human could ever hope to achieve. It was what made me more than just one kind of being.
What connected me to the Land of Faerie was having the Queen of the Seelie Court as my sister. That opened up a whole other bag of trouble for me and it was never going to end. The tie bound us forever. It was in the blood.
Every family had its issues…right?
Chapter Two
“Did you get the kid?”
“Yeah, the scrawny one with the wet nose.”
“You forgot to put on those jackets they use.”
“Is that why she’s shaking?”
“Moron, she’ll die before we get him to the village and put ‘er to work!”
“How am I supposed to know that? She’s faery right? Can’t she warm herself up with some sort of trick?”
“No, idiot. That’s why they want ‘em. They’re weak. Pathetic really. As much magic as me little toe, she’s got, right yah. They want ‘em inferior.”
Faery Tales: Six Novellas of Magic and Adventure (Faery Worlds Book 3) Page 37