Rhapsody (Bound to the Fae Book 3)

by J. Kearston

  “I’m going to have a heart attack before we ever actually run into anyone.” Atlas groans, bracing his hands on his thighs as he bends over to draw a breath, briefly closing his eyes.

  With a curse, Dorian swipes Atlas’ feet out from beneath him with a hard kick. An arrow flies through the air where his body was before his ass even hits the ground, Raziel darting down the hall in Lucien’s form to tackle the guard that capitalized on our distraction at the noise. There’s a series of grunts as my eyes strain to keep up with the blur of movements, and then the guard is screaming as Raziel snatches an arrow from his quiver and drives it through his eye.

  “So I’m guessing we switched our votes to ‘no’ in regards to sparing any fae?” Lucien asks with dry humor, gripping Atlas’ hand to help him to his feet.

  “To be fair, he didn’t even check the eyes; he fired at Atlas’ back,” Dorian points out. “One thing to spare someone getting attacked or that isn’t attacking us, and another to just let people shoot us and not expect there to be consequences.”

  All of the commotion draws too much attention, the sound of footsteps racing from the adjoining hallway. Simply for the fact that we can hear them do I assume they’re guards coming to back up one of their own; the changelings move so fast, their steps are nearly silent.

  “Come on.” Dorian grabs my hand and races in the opposite direction.

  We aren’t here to fight in their war, we’re here for the sole purpose of trying to rein in the changelings to give Elorie a shot at reviving Cody. If we waste all of our energy on the guards, we won’t have any left to do what needs done. We’ll fight if we have no other choice, but if there’s an option of avoiding it, we’ll gladly take it.

  Jumping over a fallen pillar, I toss out to Luce, “So you want me to do what exactly? Just hum a little diddy in the middle of the hallway until everybody’s singing Kumbaya and holding hands?”

  He huffs out a breath as he puts one palm on the fallen pillar, throwing himself over sideways and landing with bent knees in a fluid motion. “It’s fun in your head, isn’t it?” he simply asks as we continue running. “Just a ridiculous hodgepodge of caffeinated chaos?”

  Banking left, I lead them out of the main hallway to a series of shorter ones with frequent turns so that we have a better shot of losing them or finding somewhere to hide. “Pretty much,” I breathe, skidding to an abrupt stop.

  Halfway down the hallway, two changelings toy with a lone guard, doing a damn good job of holding his own. He manipulates a stream of water into blocking their blows, throwing up a shield to guard his back while he sidesteps in a graceful dance to avoid them landing a death blow, whipping that water out to keep them on their toes or yank their wrists back before they break free.

  I don’t want to steal their energy, because that’s just going to piss them off, and it will actually make them a bigger threat. But looking into their cold eyes, I’m not exactly inspired to do a little jig in the hallway amongst the fallen bodies and sing about how I’m the best thing ever.

  I freeze, crippled by doubt and not sure why I ever thought this was a good idea. Lucien doesn’t have the same reservations, jumping right in with Azazel and Loki to intercept the changelings, helping the guard. The man gives them a cautious look, but doesn’t sneer at their help.

  Raziel stays with us, appointing himself our personal guard, always convinced that Atlas would keel over if it wasn’t for his efforts. And every second that I stay rooted to the spot, paralyzed, I watch Lucien fight for people he owes no allegiance to for my sake and spiral even farther.

  When they manage to pin the two changelings, the guard raises a hand like he means to deliver the killing blow when Lucien grabs his wrist. The guard’s eyes harden as he snarls at Lucien, but he’s having none of it.

  “You can walk away with your life, or you can die here among your friends. Your choice.” Lucien eyes the guard, gripping his wrist so tightly that I’m astounded it doesn’t break.

  Wrenching his arm free, the guard gets to his feet, backing up a step. “Who’s side are you even on?” he spits in Lucien’s direction, taking another step back as he sees that barely restrained rage in his amber gaze.

  “Mine.” A single word, embodying all of the confidence that I’m lacking, and it’s wielded sharply enough that the guard doesn’t question it, jogging down the hall to follow the screams of his brethren.

  The two changelings struggle, but Luce, Loki, and Azazel’s holds are steadfast, glancing up at me like I hold any of the answers. My voice lodges in my throat, and only a pitiful squeak comes out when I open my mouth, closing it just as swiftly.

  “I think she’s got performance anxiety,” Dorian supplies, and as much as he thinks he hasn’t developed an ability yet, I wonder if he was actually the first one to, able to read minds as well as any telepath.

  “Seriously?” Atlas turns to face me. “I was convinced that you thought your dick was bigger than anybody’s.”

  Swallowing, I clear my throat. “I mean, obviously, but the mood just isn’t doing it for me.”

  He raises an eyebrow. “What kind of mood are you after, beautiful?”

  My heart starts sprinting, not from arousal, but fear. I can’t do this.

  My mouth stays pressed into a thin line as I try to work through my mental block. When a pained shout sounds out not far away, we’re forced into motion, Luce and the changelings staring at the new ones and not sure what to do. On impulse, Lucien bashes his head into the one pinned beneath him, knocking it unconscious, and Loki follows his lead on the one beneath him.

  Hefting them up so they won’t be murdered while vulnerable, we start running again. On the next bend, my knees threaten to give out. At the end of the hall, at the top of the stairs, Cody stands beside Elorie.

  Even though he’s aged eighteen years since I last set eyes on him, it’s undoubtedly him. Pale blue hair above darker blue eyes, like he was preserved in ice for all of this time. His hair is the same shade as Elorie’s, but even that unfortunate trait doesn’t sully the aura he gives off, that state of innocence, like he’s the same six-year-old boy I remember.

  “Cody.” The word is barely more than a whisper, but still, he seems to hear me.

  His eyes meet mine, looking so confused, forced to play catch up quicker than his mind can process. Elorie sneers down at me with a smug grin despite the changelings fighting past the line of guards in front of them, placing her hand on his shoulder. And then they’re gone in a blink, the changelings reacting with as much rage and indignation as is simmering in my gut.

  That fucking bitch looked at me like she won a game I didn’t know we were playing, convinced I wanted to take her son away from her.

  She isn’t completely wrong. I’d love to save him from her poisonous influence, but I’m not so bold as to assume I have more right to him than she does. It’s enough for me that he’s breathing, so long as she treats him well. I’ll happily surrender victory over to her if it means that the brother I love isn’t dead, that he gets a shot at life. She can turn him against me, breathe tales of how the jealous attention whore tried to kill him all she likes.

  He’s alive, and that means more than my misery.

  They appear again not too far away, Elorie frowning like she doesn’t understand what happened. My stomach lurches and I unconsciously take a step forward.

  She drained herself too much waking him up. She doesn’t have the energy left to get them out of here.

  Chaos ensues the moment everyone realizes the same thing, the changelings going for them both, the guards surging forward, and some of the changelings breaking off to rush the seven of us. I take another few steps forward, not exactly sure what I mean to accomplish beyond getting to him, to distract the changelings for a moment so he has a better shot at escaping.

  An arm bands across my stomach and yanks me back before the air rushes from my lungs as I’m thrown over Lucien’s shoulder, the world careening around me. Dorian shoves open the nearest do
or before slamming it shut behind us, him and Atlas barricading it shut as Luce drops me to my feet.

  “What the hell were you trying to accomplish?” he demands, looking absolutely livid.

  The door jolts against its hinges as something slams into it, then again. Dorian and Atlas lean against it as reinforcement and I have the weird vision of a hand punching through the wood and clawing their throats open. It’s an overlaying vision as I know completely that it isn’t happening and yet still able to see it so vividly.

  I run a hand through my hair, starting to pace. The walls seem to shrink around me despite the massive room we’re in. Every stone column appears to grow until there’s hardly any space to stand and my breathing grows rapid.

  “We have to go back out there. He’s out there; needs me, needs us. There’s too many, and Elorie can’t teleport them out, he’s going to be slaughtered.” I look up at Lucien’s stoic face, my eyes wild. “I have to go back out there.”

  “And what are you going to do when you get in the hall?” His voice is cold, flinging facts in my face, reminding me just how helpless I am in this situation. All of this supposed power and it means nothing right now.

  “I’ll distract them long enough to give him a chance.”

  I meet his glare with one of my own, fire burning in my veins. Panic, rage, desperation; call it what you will, but it makes my blood heat as it courses through my veins, rising in intensity until I question if I’ve still managed to retain some of Apollo’s abilities.

  Lucien grips my upper arm and starts walking away from the others and I’m forced to fall into step beside him, lest he start dragging me. His grip isn’t tight enough to bruise, just firm. “Then help him.”

  We follow the pathway lined by stone columns, approaching the raised dais that I was forced onto the day we were summoned here. The glass wall is still intact, the sun starting to lower in the late afternoon sky.

  As we stand beside the piano bench he releases me, but I’m still trapped by his determined glare, holding me captive. “Be the distraction that everyone needs you to be right now and we’ll keep you safe so you can concentrate.”

  “Everyone’s dying around us and you’re asking me to pretend everything’s fine,” I hiss, annoyed that my big contribution is acting as nothing more than a songbird.

  “No, I’m asking you to accept that everything is falling apart and channel that helpless rage into something useful so we might actually survive.” He doesn’t mince words or lessen their intensity to make them easier to swallow. Every sharp edge he tosses my way, trusting that I can dull their edges into something manageable.

  Dropping into my seat, I glare at those damned ivory keys containing a lifetime of pained memories, all of those emotions rising up as I hover my fingers over them. With a heavy exhale that takes more energy than I imagined, I push them away. Every ghost that haunts me, I refuse to let have any more power over me. All that’s left is that helpless rage Lucien shone a light on, demanding it finally be acknowledged.

  He refuses to let me hide anymore, and I’m not so sure I like the person he shoved into the spotlight.

  But all I have is me, whether or not that’s enough. All of my personas and delusions have no place here, not while my mates are the only things standing in the way between us and an early grave.

  Closing my eyes, I finally let my fingers touch the smooth keys, trusting the people around me implicitly while I let my guard down. Every shield I’ve spent a lifetime building up to keep myself safe, I take down brick by mental brick. The entire dam of pent up emotions from the repressed trauma and desperation I let loose, knowing that I’ll walk out of here and never be able to pretend things are the same, if I even walk out of here at all.

  My fingers fly across the keys without conscious thought, and on the next breath, time itself seems to stop. My fingers are the same flurry of movement as before, and yet they’re somehow more. Everything I am; every sob, every scream, and every smile. I let all of it bleed into the music, pour every drop of who I am into the next note, the next puff of air that leaves my lips as the words begin to slip free.

  I play, not for all of the people outside of those doors, but for me.

  Sweat beads on my temple as my fingers fly, keeping my eyes firmly shut the entire time. I’m not sure if it’s because I want to block out the world around me, too much of a coward to face it, or if it’s because I don’t want anything to exist beyond this feeling. The words pour from my throat without hesitation now, rising in volume as I push more and more of myself into them.

  Energy thrums through my body, stirred to life alongside my abilities. And though I know it’ll put a bigger target on our heads with the changelings already trying to storm into the room, I embrace it. If they’re focused on me, then Elorie has a better chance of getting Cody out of here in one piece. She’s a necessary evil right now, one that I’d love to see the smug look wiped off of her face, but we share the same goal currently.

  One song blends into another, and I feel no different than a violinist on a sinking ship, striving to put just a little bit more of myself into the world before I die, trying to ease the mind of at least one person so that they can enter death’s embrace without fear. I fumble only once, needing to clear my throat through the steady stream of tears racing down my cheeks.

  I’m not afraid of dying; never have been. I’m afraid of dying before doing anything worthwhile. There’s an irrational compulsion to repay whatever power decided that I should be born, like I need to justify they were right and I deserved the gift.

  The gift, not the curse.

  These three men have swayed my previous opinion, that I’m not here simply to suffer like it’s my cosmic due. They make it finally feel like a gift to be alive, just because they’re a part of mine, no matter how brief.

  As I slide back into the chorus, I suck in a breath, only to have the words echo around me before I can get them out. My eyes fly open, dozens of changelings in the room in front of me, along with several guards and my mates. Skipping a single beat in confusion, I carry on with the next line of lyrics, only to have the changelings parrot it back, heads tilted in contemplation like they’re searching for a faint memory.

  Grinning, a watery laugh bubbles out and I swipe at my face with the back of one hand, throwing myself back into it. Though the piano isn’t the best to accomplish it, Song #3 is too apropos not to attempt, and I like to imagine that I pull it off. Whether it’s a delusion or not, I’ll gladly go to my grave pretending if it means holding onto this moment.

  I’ve never been able to bring myself to look when I was forced to play growing up, unwilling to see the disdain on their faces and taint the feeling I was already struggling to bring to life. But now, looking out over the guards that remained indifferent to my torture, seeing the way they’re as paralyzed as I was out in the hall...it’s a heady feeling. I should have seen through Rickon’s cruelty sooner; none of the guards inside of the castle ever did anything more than Elorie commanded, typically remaining as far away from me as possible.

  Just because they were ordered not to intervene didn’t mean they were indifferent to my situation. For all I know, there are several of them that would welcome a change from her tyrannical reign and simply tried to survive it as best they could, to provide for their own families and keep them safe.

  I was blind to everything beyond my own pain for so long, I didn’t even consider the suffering that other people around me might be enduring too.

  Time has no meaning and I can’t bring myself to stop despite the ache in my hands. The spell they’re trapped in, rooted to the spot as the compulsion wraps around all of the people in the room besides my mates, is too fragile to risk taking a breather. The moment I do, the distraction will cease to matter. If Cody and Elorie aren’t far enough away, the changelings’ preternatural speed will make quick work of catching up whatever distance they might have gained, might turn on us.

  Gradually switching to calmer songs now
that I have their undivided attention, I close my eyes again, concentrating. As exciting as it was to have them as invested as I am, the last thing we want is to keep them keyed up. So as my fingers fly across the keys, I imbue every bit of power that I have, steadily growing within me the longer I play.

  Slower, I change not only the tempo, but the atmosphere in the room. Just like the day I helped Dorian, I morph all of that rage surrounding me into something more manageable, a yearning for more. For something better. A physical ache that leaves you distraught, needing something to cling to so you don’t drift off into the abyss.

  And then I become it, that anchor in the darkness, the tether they’re desperately seeking to keep themselves from splintering apart. My arms start to burn, and my fingers nearly trip over the keys. But eyes clamped tightly shut, I push through the sensation, refusing to so much as cry out. It’s a dull pain, and after what I’ve experienced at Apollo’s hands, at Rickon’s, it hardly even registers as noteworthy.

  Exhaling, I force myself to concentrate, to keep going. Even as sweat trickles down my temples and my back aches from holding the position for so long, when my hands start cramping, I don’t stop or fumble a note. My chest is heaving as I stop singing for a single song, long enough to regain my breath while continuing to play.

  “You just couldn’t wait to steal the spotlight from my son again, could you?” Elorie’s breath whispers in my ear the same moment she presses a blade to my throat.

  My eyes fly open, meeting the guys’ as they rush away from the door they’re guarding, but they’re too far. And our changelings aren’t immune to the compulsion, under the same spell as the rest of the room. They start blinking rapidly, like waking up from a long sleep and unsure where they are, but it’s too gradual, too slow for anyone to process the scene before them.