by Anna Durand
Skeiron leaped out next, lithe as a cougar, far more agile than either of us mortals. With one smooth stride he penetrated the cascade and pivoted to march onto the ledge, pushing past me and Ash. We crushed ourselves to the cliff to avoid getting shoved off into the deep pool below us.
When Nevan had taken me through the waterfall, he whisked me onto and off of the ledge. Skeiron made no effort to aid us. He leaped across the wide gap between the ledge and the wooden railing, vaulting over the barrier onto the dirt path where I'd first seen Nevan. Hand in hand, Ash and I inched along the shelf.
Brennus hurtled through the cascade in raven form, wings spread wide, water spraying out. His wings whooshed as he soared past us, high into the sky and out of sight behind the trees.
Ash and I reached the ledge's limit. A good fifteen feet out and six feet down separated us from solid ground, with the railing in the way. Skeiron waited on the path, gaze fixated on me.
"Need a hand?"
I yelped at the familiar voice. Ash jumped, reeling into me, and the momentum thrust us forward, our feet skidding on the wet stone.
A rangy body swung out in front of us, halting our fall.
Tris frowned at me. "So ya do need a hand. Eh, lady?"
"You scared the hell out of us." I slapped his arm. He moved past me to hover in the air just beyond the ledge's end.
He was floating. Actually floating.
"Whoa," Ash said, staring wide-eyed at Tris. "Who's he?"
"A leprechaun," I told him. "Tris, about my brother… "
"Got a safe place to hide him." Tris rubbed his neck and grumbled. "Nevan wanted to come get you, but he couldn't. Something about bleeping foolish mortal women. I'm paraphrasing. Nevan's powers are back, but cripes, that dude still has issues — and he knows about your new bargain."
The deal with Skeiron prevented me having any contact with Nevan. He must've sensed the prohibition, much the way he sensed when I was in trouble back in the palace. "Nevan sent you?"
"Yep." Tris offered me his hand. I took it, and since I was holding Ash's hand, the three of us winked out of and back into the real world, our feet now on the path about twenty feet from Skeiron. Tris cast a wary glance at the king and hunched his shoulders, jamming his hands in his jeans pockets. "Nevan don't know the details of your bargain, but he ain't a happy camper."
"Tell him to trust me, stop bitching, and do what I told him."
The leprechaun grinned. "Sure. Love to."
Without so much as a wave goodbye, Tris grabbed my brother's arm and they vanished.
The sylph king watched with arrogant satisfaction as I approached him. "Your fae friend will not save you. Nevan cannot save you. The bargain you entered into binds you to me forever."
Our deal stated it remained in effect until one of us died. He assumed I'd die first and my enslavement would last essentially forever, in mortal terms. Good. My plan relied on his misconceptions.
Skeiron herded me down the path, past the vortex, and through the rock garden into the parking lot. The Porter family motor home hunkered there, parked near the exit onto the highway, but the shop seemed oddly deserted. I wondered why he hadn't poofed us straight to the boundary. This death march of ours made worms wriggle in my gut.
But it was more than the walk. Everything seemed off. I struggled to figure out why, when the truth hit me.
Silence. No birds twittered. No cars hummed on the highway. Even the rumble of the fans inside the shop had gone quiet.
The door of the motor home burst open. My parents rushed out, their arms loaded with — well, arms. My father had slung a rifle over his shoulder and wore a gun belt with a holstered semiautomatic pistol on his hip and extra ammo clips attached to the belt. Mom gripped a shotgun, with her favorite .357 revolver and its speed loaders clipped to her belt, ready to reload on the fly. She had another handgun berthed in a shoulder holster, while Dad carried a second rifle in a sheath strapped to his back.
I'd never loved them more than in that moment.
My parents stopped halfway across the parking lot, their stances wide, their gazes and expressions hardened into steel.
Skeiron tipped his chin up, sweeping his haughty gaze over them. "If you wish no harm to come to your daughter, lay down your weapons."
Mom targeted her 12-gauge shotgun at Skeiron. "Touch my daughter and I'll blow enough holes in you to make your head spin for a good long while."
"He won't hurt her," Dad said, resting his hand on his holstered pistol. "He needs her alive. We're just here to make a point."
"And what point is that, puny mortal?" Skeiron asked.
Nevan materialized in front of my parents. His impressive armor glittered in the sunshine. He set his mouth in a determined line, his eyes twin supernovas, his body a vision of sinuous muscle and contained fury.
"The point," Nevan said coolly, "is to show you Lindsey will never be alone."
How the hell was he here? The bargain —
Nevan winked at me, his eyes glittering.
And that's when I understood. He held a trump card nothing could outplay. He owed me his life. Though I remained bound to Skeiron, the part of our deal forbidding me from seeing Nevan could not override the life debt. I'd granted him permission to come to me whenever he deemed it necessary.
A flash of movement drew my attention to the shop's entrance.
Travis sauntered down the walkway, his strides long and purposeful, one hand firmly on the gun on holstered on his hip, the other gripped around the barrel of a rifle. He wore his sheriff's uniform and his eyes were clear, his face molded into a stern expression.
Stan marched out of the shop behind Travis. His tie-dyed shirt and rumpled khakis clashed with the M-16 rifle he held in both hands.
My allies. My army. Pride swelled in my chest for this ragtag group of family, friends… and Nevan.
Without thinking, I took a step toward him.
An invisible force yanked me back. I grunted in surprise, stumbled, caught myself.
Skeiron sniggered. "You belong to me, wench."
Wench again? Oh, he'd suffer for that. "Let's go to the fucking boundary already."
"Not yet." His arctic smile frosted my blood. "It's time to teach you a lesson about bargains."
I recoiled a step, gravel crunching under my boots.
"Did you believe," he snarled, "you could outwit me, the king of the sylphs? I have negotiated bargains since before your kind learned to paint outlines of their hands on cave walls."
My gaze shot to my parents and then to Nevan, who'd switched into warrior mode, stoic and rock-still.
"Your family is safe from me and my associates," Skeiron said. He pointed a finger straight up, indicating the sky. "But not from the elements."
I stared up at the heavens, a ceiling of deep azure arching over our heads. A gray blob appeared, swelling and churning, transmuting into a writhing mass of purple and black. The air thickened, charged with a faint current that crackled over my skin. The humidity choked my lungs.
The storm cloud swallowed the sky, plunging us into a false twilight. Lightning slashed the air. Thunder detonated, the ground shook, and balls of sizzling, white plasma disgorged from the clouds. They bounced along the gravel to fizzle out at our feet.
I waved my arms above my head. "Get inside!"
My parents retreated into the RV. Travis and Stan bolted for the store.
Nevan remained steadfast in his position twenty feet from me and Skeiron, the sword in his hand, its tip directed at the ground.
The storm unleashed a torrent of rain. It inundated us and clogged my vision, but bound to Skeiron, I couldn't move unless he bid it. Tiny hailstones pecked my face, arms, chest, stinging my skin.
The sky mutated to grayish green, washing the world in an eerie light, and a clattering, rumbling racket erupted overhead.
A tornado was descending on the heads of everyone I loved.
27
We crashed down on U.S. 41, smack on the double yellow line. Skeiron was behind me, his hands shackling my upper arms. He yanked me back against his body, the fabric of his toga scraping over my exposed skin.
Straight ahead of us, sunlight set the mile marker sign ablaze.
Behind us, thunder boomed. Lightning cracked. I twisted my head around to look back and panic surged in my chest. The thunderstorm overwhelmed the horizon and half the sky above us, and I could just make out the gray-blue rope of the tornado whipping side to side, spiraling ever downward.
Skeiron spun us both around to face the storm. "Your loved ones will be destroyed in a matter of moments. Know you belong to me and there is no one left in any realm who can rescue you."
Metal screeched and clanged. Wood cracked. I couldn't see the shop or the RV, but I realized the tornado was chewing them up. It spat debris in a whirling-dervish cloud. My mind jumped to the worst conclusions, but I did what I do best. I bottled up the terror, the images of mangled bodies, and locked it all away in my mental vault.
Tears streamed down my cheeks, but I hauled in a breath and steeled my soul. I had to finish this.
Power sizzled in the air.
A phalanx of black-armored sylph soldiers materialized before us, two rows of ten each. Another phalanx appeared beside the first. Then another. And another. I counted the groups as they popped into view, until the last one emerged and Skeiron leaned in to growl in my ear.
"This is one battalion. I have twenty more."
I'd counted a hundred soldiers in this battalion. Twenty more? That would make…
Two thousand soldiers.
If they survived the tornado, I had my parents, Nevan, Travis, Stan, and — if he showed up — Tris. Seven of us against way too many of them. If any of my family and friends were still alive.
My gaze flew to the tornado. The ripping, banging, freight-train racket reverberated in my ears.
Skeiron wheeled us back around toward the mile marker sign. "This is the boundary, delineated by the post there. The energy licks at me even here, thirty paces from the line." He thrust me toward the sign, making me stumble a few steps. "It is time, Janusite."
A pow ripped through the air, originating from the sky behind us.
I whipped my head around.
The tornado scattered. The thundercloud dissipated, like smoke blown away by a hair dryer.
Nevan. Somehow I knew he was responsible, though I had no clue how.
Skeiron clapped a hand on my shoulder, wrenching it backward. I bit back a grunt.
"The boundary," he said. "Now."
Oh God, please let this work.
I took a deep breath, straightened, lifted my chin, and marched down the highway with Skeiron trailing behind me. When we reached the mile marker sign, I hesitated long enough for him to catch up. I took hold of his hand, cringing inwardly at the contact, and led him across the boundary.
Heat flashed over me. I tripped, halted, gasping for air as pressure mounted in my chest.
Skeiron freed my hand and clutched his head in both palms. His eyes went wide, his mouth was agape, and his entire body shuddered violently. Sparks of energy seared his skin.
He crumpled to his knees, his features distorted in agony.
I scrambled away from, toward the boundary. A bizarre mixture of glee and horror tore through me, propelling me forward again to crouch beside Skeiron. I didn't care that my voice came out harsh, not like me at all, rife with an anger I'd suppressed for too long. "I promised to stay with you as long as you're alive and still king."
He bellowed at me.
"Sucks, doesn't it?" I bent closer and the power ripping him apart singed my skin. "You made a bad bargain and you made one too many assumptions. You should've asked me how I managed to take Nevan across the line."
Energy arced over his flesh, into his nostrils and open mouth. He gagged. "You will suffer. My army — "
"Will be stuck on the other side of the boundary, you stupid bastard." I gulped down my gorge, sickened by the blood pouring from his nostrils. I forged on anyway, hungry for a vengeance I hadn't realized I needed. "Let me tell you how this works. I brought Nevan across the line because he matters to me. Love empowers my magic, you sadistic bastard."
The king screamed.
A curtain of white, electrical energy enveloped him. His body seemed to blur and boil, bits of him splitting off to spiral out into the air, forming an ever-growing mist. The realization of what I was witnessing struck me. I staggered backward a few more steps, my hand flying to my mouth.
His body was being disassembled atom by atom.
Thunder exploded just down the road behind me.
As the remnants of Skeiron drifted into an amorphous cloud above my head, I risked a glance back down the highway.
The sylph army was advancing on me, swords brandished.
Gulping down the lump in my throat, I stared up at the cloud composed of Skeiron's essence. It floated up, expanding, dispersing. A gust of wind worthy of a hurricane blasted over me. I teetered toward the boundary but held my ground.
The wind scattered the cloud, scattered Skeiron to the Four Winds.
Gone. No longer king, no longer alive.
Our bargain shattered with a palpable tearing sensation. I hissed at the pain, though it was blessedly brief.
The sylph army halted at the boundary, an arm's length from me.
I raised an arm to indicate the last vestiges of the Skeiron cloud. "Your king is gone. You can't cross the boundary, which means there will be no conquest of the mortal realm. Go home."
They didn't move.
What did I have to do to get rid of these creeps?
"It doesn't work that way, love."
Relief gushed through me at the sound of Nevan's voice. Moving only my eyes, I searched the area for Nevan and found him a few feet to my left, angle sideways to me on the opposite side of the boundary. His armor glistened and sunlight bounced off the blade of his sword, gripped in his muscular hand.
"Need a bit of help, darlin'?" he asked with a grin.
"The damn army won't go away."
"I'm afraid they'll have no intention of giving up." He swept his gaze over the army poised a dozen feet from him. "They will complete their mission, even without a king."
I nabbed his hand and towed him over the boundary. As I twined my fingers tightly with his, I said, "It's safer over here. Is my family okay?"
"They are unharmed, as is your employer." He hesitated, then added, "And the sheriff."
"What got rid of the storm?"
"I did."
"I knew it." Though I longed to kiss him, I wouldn't do it in front of the sylph army. "How did you do it?"
"I am an air elemental — and my full power has been restored, which I believe you are responsible for. Aren't ye?"
"Absolutely." Hell with the army. I sealed my lips over his for a firm kiss. "Best deal I ever made."
He brushed the backs of his fingers down my jaw. "I underestimated you. What you did, crafting such a cunning bargain… You will do fine in my world."
"Thanks." A warm glow enveloped me from the inside out. The glow of victory, yes, but mostly it stemmed from his compliment. "I never realized how incredibly powerful you are in your full glory. You are magnificent, Nevan."
He puffed up a little, his closed-mouth smile one of pride and well-earned satisfaction.
My gaze wandered to the army standing motionless mere feet from us. "What mission are they waiting to finish?"
"To destroy me and your family, then take you back to the Unseen realm. They must avenge their king."
&nbs
p; "I thought killing him would end this."
"Sorry, love." He sighed. "It's only the first stage."
"What else is there? Do you have a plan?"
"Nothing as foolhardy as yours." He sounded annoyed but his gaze was soft, his eyes muted by worry.
"My ideas are always crazy," I said. "But it worked. Skeiron is no more."
"Yes, I saw what you did." He let out a long sigh, and I swore a burden physically lifted from his shoulders, squaring them. "You freed me, Lindsey. Thank you."
"Are you back at one hundred percent? I mean, did my bargain with Skeiron get undone when I undid him?"
"Agreements previously fulfilled remain and we are both freed from our vows to him. But for the record, you have not yet experienced my full glory." He hit me with his best sensual smile and a pulse of sweet, erotic energy shot through me. "I'll demonstrate it for ye later, in private."
If what he'd shown me so far represented less than his full glory… Another pulse of desire rippled through me.
He dipped his head and pulled me closer. "Think ye can handle me, unrestrained?"
"Absolutely." I swept my hand through the air, indicating the sylph battalion. "You had a plan?"
A soldier separated from the throng and approached the boundary. His face shield revealed only his eyes, but he spoke in a voice gravelly and cold. "Surrender the Janusite or we will slaughter every human within the confines of the boundary."
Without releasing my hand, Nevan rose to full height, shoulders back, head high. He looked so regal, so powerful, so virile. Magnificent.
I observed him — okay, gazed in rapt adoration at him — as he addressed the army.
"Skeiron is no more," he announced, his voice echoing off the trees. "He cannot protect or empower you. All of you have seen what the Jansuite can do. The king possessed more power than all of you combined, and yet she — " Nevan swept a hand in my direction, flashing me a surreptitious wink. " — destroyed him without a single weapon, wielding only the power of the Janusite. Do you dare challenge her?"
All but a dozen of the soldiers vanished.
"If you will not surrender," the leader of the army said, "the battle begins."