Black Ops Fae

by C. N. Crawford

  I nodded at him, letting him know it was okay for him to go now while Aereus was completely distracted.

  As I looked at him, he seemed to fade away before my eyes, shadows cloaking him. I felt his presence move from me—disappear, really. Only someone who’d already been paying attention—like me—would notice the departure at all.

  Kur slammed Aereus into a wall, and the entire building trembled. The horseman of war roared like an injured beast.

  I tightened my fingers on the chair. Please tell me Kur understands that he has to let the angel win this.

  They threw each other into the walls, cracking stone. Clanking metal filled the air. I glanced at the ceiling, where the weapons jostled violently in their chains, banging together.

  I nudged Tanit, then pointed at the ceiling. “I think we need to move.”

  “Good point.” She reacted swiftly, and in the next moment, she’d taken shelter in a doorframe.

  In another second, I was by her side, crammed into the arched doorway.

  The angel and the demon gripped each other’s shoulders, grunting and straining, fingers digging into flesh. Groaning, Kur pulled Aereus’s neck down into a headlock, trying to dominate him.

  I leaned into Tanit, whispering, “Kur knows he needs to lose, right?”

  Tanit cocked her head. “Demons can be irrational when it comes to domination.”

  “Wonderful,” I muttered. Maybe a bit of a reminder was in order.

  “Aereus seems to be winning!” I shouted, despite all evidence to the contrary. “How thrilling to see an angel dominate a demon!” I punctuated each word carefully.

  The interjection actually seemed to work, because in the next moment, Kur released his grip around the angel’s neck. Then, Aereus was able to grip the shadow demon by the shoulders.

  With a wild roar, Aereus threw Kur onto the ground. The crack of demon bone against stone echoed through the hall.

  Victorious, Aereus lifted his arms above his head, his muscled body glistening with sweat. “Victory is mine once again! The angel of war reigns supreme!”

  I suppressed the urge to roll my eyes, instead forcing myself to clap. Honestly. I’d never expected ancient angels to act like such children.

  Kur pushed himself off the ground with a groan. As I crossed back to the table, still clapping, Kur shot me a withering look that spoke of his resentment. Even if we’d all agreed to the plan ahead of time, it killed him inside to let Aereus win.

  Without uttering a word, Kur collected his shirt and jacket from the human servants, sullenly dressing himself.

  Still shirtless, Aereus dropped into his chair, breathing heavily. Sweat slid down his chest.

  One of us would need to get up close to him, to block his line of vision. I gave Tanit a nudge.

  I was pretty sure her groan was audible only to me as she rose from her chair. “In the shadow kingdom, the high lords never told us about the angels.” She sat before him at the edge of the table, her dress riding up. Given what she’d said about underwear earlier, I was pretty sure Aereus’s eyes wouldn’t be leaving her body anytime soon.

  She ran a fingertip over his bare chest. “I never knew you had inspired so many heroes in human history. Genghis Khan, Alexander the Great...”

  “You see, my little shadow demonesses? Your males can’t compete with me.”

  “Amazing,” said Tanit, a little too deadpan. “Such power. Tell me about the wars you’ve fought.”

  Aereus stared up at her, transfixed, and began to launch into the tales of his historic exploits. With every word, a little more of that primal rage began to seethe in my blood. Now that Adonis had left the room, I had no one here to calm me. I gripped my wineglass tightly, taking out my anger on its stem, until a smooth presence kissed my skin once again.

  It took me a moment to realize Adonis had already returned, shadows darkening the air around him. My clenched thighs and fingers began to relax once more. I met his gaze, and he shook his head—nearly imperceptibly. But it was enough to tell me that our plan hadn’t worked.

  My heart sank. Our death warrants may have been signed, and we were no closer to protecting ourselves from the archangel onslaught.

  Chapter 29

  Wordlessly, two cherubs led us back to our room, while I restrained myself from asking what, exactly, Adonis had seen in the war room.

  At last, when we reached our room, I rushed inside and closed the door hard behind us.

  I gripped Adonis’s arm. “You gave me a head shake. What did the head shake mean? Please tell me there is a chance the head shake meant ‘I found the stones and everything is fine.’”

  “Unsurprisingly, the head shake meant ‘no.’ I did not find the stones. Just a book I already have, and Aereus’s relics.”

  I wasn’t letting this go. I’d been certain something lay hidden there. “What’s in this book?”

  His steely eyes betrayed nothing. “It’s about the Bringer of Light. When you caught Aereus looking at the bookshelf, it’s likely what he was thinking about was this text. But the book doesn’t contain any information we don’t already have.”

  I studied his chiseled features, so beautiful I could hardly think clearly around him. “I need specifics. What do we already know, exactly?”

  “It’s merely a description of the stones’ origin.”

  “Please tell me you took it with you.”

  “I didn’t need to take it. I have my own copy. I bring it with me wherever I go, searching for clues in its text.”

  I thrust out my hand. “Show me.”

  A dark power rippled off his body. He wasn’t used to being ordered around. “You won’t be able to read it, but if you must see it…”

  He turned away and lifted up the mattress. He pulled out a thin, dark volume—one with no lettering on the front. “I don’t think you’ll discover anything I haven’t already.”

  I took it from him and sat on the bed. The spine cracked as I opened it, and I began scanning the yellowed pages. I couldn’t read the text, wasn’t even entirely sure if it was Greek or Phoenician, but luckily for me, it came with pictures. Images of vines coiled around the edges of the pages, and artists had depicted page after page of flowering plants, each one labeled in that ancient language.

  “What does it say?” I asked.

  “It gives an account of the Old Gods, of the gifts they provide to combat the angels. The Devil’s Bane that grows where archangels walk the earth, the sacred rowan tree that channels the power of the Old Gods. And the Stones of Zahar, mined from gleaming blue gemstones.”

  I turned another brittle page, uncovering an image of a grotto—one I was sure I’d seen before. A river carved through a rocky landscape, its banks dappled with blood-red anemones. I’d seen it in a dream, I thought, when I’d flown in Adonis’s arms.

  “This looks familiar.”

  “Does it?” Surprise tinged his voice.

  “I’ve dreamt it.” I studied the gentle curve of the river, the myrrh trees growing by its banks. “And it’s not just that I dreamt it. The garden outside your castle is a version of this place. The red flowers, the river carving through the center.”

  “It’s where I was born.”

  “Afeka. Right. Why is your birthplace in a book about the Stones of Zahar?”

  Adonis leaned in to me, pointing to the cave. “Some say this cave is the entrance to the underworld, the realm of the Old Gods. I was born in their presence, surrounded by the stones that could kill me.”

  “Right…the seeds of destruction thing.”

  “This cave is where life mingles with death. It’s where Aereus found the stones in the first place.”

  I traced my fingertips over the picture. “I didn’t know the Old Gods had anything to do with an underworld.”

  Adonis’s magic caressed my body. “That’s the first thing you need to know about gods. All gods rule the realms of the dead. All gods demand sacrifices for their gifts. Even the Old Gods.”

  Frankly
, that didn’t sound ideal. I was about to reap a metric ton of power from the Old Gods. “A sacrifice. And what sacrifice will they demand from me for using their stones?”

  He considered it, a concerned look in his eyes. “I honestly can’t tell you that. I think they’ll want you to change, to become something new. That’s how the gods of nature work, isn’t it? They sacrifice the old to make way for the new. Death gives rise to new life.”

  Among the plants by the mouth of the cave, the artist had painted a few shimmering blue stones.

  I pointed at them. “This must be them. The Stones of Zahar.”

  “I remember them,” he said quietly. “The color of the sky over Afeka.”

  I breathed in his exotic scent of myrrh. When an angel like him looks at a garden—he sees a place of death. No wonder Aereus’s garden had unsettled me so much. From an ancient immortal’s perspective, it was already dying.

  My gaze trailed over Adonis’s breathtaking, masculine features—then lower, over the pendant he wore at his throat. I touched it, gripping it gently between two fingers. He nearly flinched at my touch. Candlelight glinted off the amber.

  “What is this?”

  For just a moment, a sharp flash of pain lit his gray-blue eyes, then his gaze shuttered. An easy smile replaced the brief look of pain. “Just something I’ve kept with me a long time.”

  And there it was again. Adonis keeping secrets from me, even if he could hear some of my own thoughts.

  Chapter 30

  Curled up in bed, I’d given in to sleep, to the bone-deep tiredness that gripped my body. In my dreams, I’d wandered through the grotto from the pictures in the book, surrounded by the sound of a rushing river echoing off stone walls.

  A hand at my throat woke me, powerful arms pinning me to the bed—one encircling my neck, the other gripping my wrists.

  My eyes snapped open with shock, and I looked up into Adonis’s eyes—not icy blue, but the cold hardness of obsidian. His midnight wings spread out behind him, ready to fight, and his magic thrummed over my skin.

  For a moment, fear gripped my heart. What the hell was he doing? Instead of his soothing presence whispering through my mind, I felt claws of rage, of panic.

  “Adonis,” I whispered.

  His powerful body completely pinned me down, one of his legs pressed between mine. His hand enclosed my throat—but he wasn’t pressing down. All I knew was that he had complete control here, and I had no idea what was going on.

  I searched his eyes, expecting to find rage. Instead, I found only confusion. He hadn’t fully woken yet, and his breath sounded ragged in his throat. He’d been dreaming of something terrible.

  Within my mind, I called to him. Adonis. Now would be a good time to help me. With my hands pinned, I couldn’t gently jostle him to wake him. Instead, I stroked one of my legs up the back of his. Slowly, I felt those claws of rage begin to recede, replaced by a soothing calm.

  “Adonis,” I whispered again.

  He blinked, his muscles relaxing, and his eyes began to focus, returning to pale gray-blue. He pulled his hand from my throat, searching my neck. Gently his fingertips brushed over my skin. “Ruby?” he rasped. “Did I hurt you?”

  “I’m fine,” I said. “You were having a nightmare. I think.”

  Frowning, he glanced at my wrists before pulling his hand away from them. He rolled onto his side, propping up his head to peer down at me. “I was dreaming of the fae.”

  I swallowed hard. That made sense. He was in bed with a fae. “Not a good dream, I take it.”

  He shifted, sitting up in bed, his wings disappearing from view. Dim torchlight danced over the savage scars on his chest. He stared at the bed, looking lost in his thoughts. “More of a memory.”

  He’d shifted his body away from me, and the loss of the heat from his skin made me want to press up against him again. “Of what?”

  His magic sliced the air around us in vicious swirls. “About when the fae king imprisoned me when I was young.”

  My throat tightened. “What happened?”

  A deep, searing pain flashed in his eyes for a moment, before he masked it again. “After my parents died, the fae captured me. The king gave me as a gift to his consort. She used to say she wanted to surround herself with beautiful things.” His voice had a sharp edge to it. “Most of the time, King Oberon kept me imprisoned within an oak grove. He used a certain magical enchantment to trap me there, and Devil’s Bane to weaken me.”

  I tightened my hand on his, just a little. “Fae magic. Devil’s Bane. Was that really enough to trap someone like you there? You’re a god of death.”

  He searched my face, as if he might find the answer there. Then, his familiar charming smile curled his lips. “Maybe I wasn’t always the powerful being you see before you today.”

  “What happened to you there?”

  “At night, I slept outside on a bed of moss. When King Oberon brought humans to his realm, he’d command me to enchant the air, so the women were out of control with lust. They used me as an agent in their lurid rituals. They worship euphoria, ecstatic states. It doesn’t sound so terrible, does it?”

  Silver flecks, like starlight, shone in his gray-blue eyes. I almost thought I could get lost in those arctic depths. “Except there’s a dark side to that ecstasy.” His fingers flexed on the bedsheets. “The violent, primal side of ecstatic states. The fae euphoria.”

  Seemingly lost in his thoughts, he reached for me, brushing his fingertips over my hips, stroking up and down. “Sometimes, the fae turned on each other in their frenzy. But they mostly went after human females. They dragged women into their forested palace, seduced them in their frenzied states. Fae males like to dominate women.”

  “Yep. And that would be why my parents left the realm.”

  “Some fae feed from humans, just like vampires. Except instead of blood, they draw power from heightened human emotions. Ecstatic or devastated states. The humans’ frenzy fed King Oberon’s magical ability. The hunt filled him with power.”

  A cold shudder danced up my neck. “What do you mean ‘the hunt’?”

  He idly traced over my hip, lost in his own memories. “Another form of fae entertainment. They’d let human females loose in the forests, pretending to free them. The women would run, naked, thinking they’d been given a chance at freedom, thinking they could get home again. King Oberon drank in their terror. His body glowed with power. The fae males would work themselves up into an ecstatic, feral frenzy. Their eyes would gleam with silver, their canines would lengthen. Claws and horns would sprout from their bodies.”

  Shadows darkened his eyes, and his voice had taken on a haunted tone.

  I swallowed hard. “And the women were the prey.”

  “Exactly. Their deaths were brutal, savage. The fae would tear them limb from limb. They’d feast on the women like beasts.”

  My stomach turned. “You obviously don’t approve of the fae. You have your own moral code—punish the wicked and all that. So why stay with them? Why take part? You’re a death god. You could have survived the Devil’s Bane.”

  He didn’t answer.

  Compelled by a sharp need to touch him, I ran my fingers over the savage scars on his chest.

  Ice glinted in his eyes. “I am the single most lethal creature to have ever walked the earth. I was never meant to be here. I can kill just by thinking, just by feeling. It’s in my nature. It’s what I am. When given the chance to slaughter the unworthy, I enjoy it. My captivity kept me from killing in greater numbers.”

  My fingers froze. “Do you actually kill people just for fun?”

  “Not anymore. That was a long time ago.” His features softened as he looked at me. “I was like you, once. In love with beauty. Every now and then I remember that feeling. I get glimmers of it, and it makes me feel alive again.”

  “When?”

  “When I look at the color of your skin, the flush on your cheeks, the heat in your eyes after I kissed you. The perfec
t, tempting shape of your body when you dropped your blanket in my room. The dirt smudged on your skin when you were a feral fae, caught up in passion.”

  At his words, my blood heated, and I pressed in closer to him, until my skin skimmed against his. Finally, I was getting some of the real Adonis, the truth behind his facade. I reached for his face, stroking it.

  “Show me you—without the glamour,” he rasped. “Show me all of you. When I kissed you on Eimmal...I haven’t felt so alive in centuries.”

  “You hate the fae, but you’re drawn to us.”

  He shook his head slowly. “I’m not drawn to the fae. Just to you.”

  I sucked in a deep breath, letting the glamour fade completely. My pale hair tumbled over my shoulders, and I took a deep breath, waiting to see his reaction. I felt completely exposed before him.

  It was at that point I realized how close our bodies were—my dress riding up under the sheets, my bare thigh brushing against his leg. My pulse raced, heat flaming through my body. Adonis seemed to notice, too, because his breath grew heavier, eyes burning like starlight. He reached for the neckline of my dress, tracing his fingertips under the hem. At his touch, pleasure rippled over my skin.

  My mind flashed with an image of Adonis pinning me down again—except this time, in my fevered mind, he was kissing me hard, my legs wrapped around his waist.

  “Intense emotions still fascinate me.” The unexpected gentleness of his touch made me want to moan. Glacially slow, he began to tug down the neckline of my dress, studying the vivid flush on my chest.

  I hooked my leg around his. I wanted to feel his hands gripping me, to feel his mouth pressed hard against mine. Instead, he was teasing me, silver glinting in his eyes.

  I threaded my fingers into his dark hair.

  With a slow, graceful gesture, he eased down the top of my dress to expose my shoulder, where his mark stood out starkly on my pale skin. He lowered his mouth to the mark, then ran his tongue over it, sparking a wave of wild heat arcing through my blood. Slowly, his mouth moved farther up my neck. Now, his fingers were gripping my hip possessively. Wild, liquid fire surged through my core, and I felt my back arching, my legs falling open.