Midnight Falls (Sky Brooks Series Book 3)

by McKenzie Hunter

  I backed out of the restaurant in a hurry and walked several blocks until I found a small café hidden off the main street. The moment the server walked up to my table, I placed my order: five buttermilk pancakes, French toast, eggs and bacon. I ignored the stunned look from the server.

  My stomach grumbled to be filled, but all I did was stare at the plate when it was placed in front of me. Stop it! I scolded myself for thinking about Ethan and the blonde. When had he called her? Had he even waited until I closed my door before he did? Was she offended that he discarded her for me, only to return to her last night?

  The audible growling of my stomach continued and I shoved pancakes into my mouth, ignoring Ethan, who had come into the café and taken a seat in the chair across from me. Head down, I concentrated on my food as though I hadn’t encountered anything more interesting in my life.

  He wasn’t going away.

  I reminded myself how ridiculous it was for me to feel this way, but my emotions were pretty fragile and I was jealous.

  “What?” I asked, looking up just enough to glance at him before returning them to my food.

  He rubbed at his face. It had been a couple days since he had shaved and it was more evident now. He sat back in the chair.

  “Her name is Sara, she lives here—”

  “Good. Now you can refer her to by name instead of ‘what’s her name that I screwed in New York.’”

  He sighed. “She is considering moving to Indianapolis to be closer to family and wanted some information about the liaison, but I don’t think she really liked my opinion. I only know her by reputation and she seems like a wild card. She will not fare well under his direction.” Packs were huge, and Sebastian used liaisons in each large city to help to manage them. Calling them an Alpha was a misnomer, but in a smaller pack, most of them could easily be one. They worked as an extension of Sebastian and an infraction against them was just as serious as one against him.

  I attempted to finish my food, shooting furtive glances in his direction as we did what we did best: ignore the obvious and let that elephant roam free in our space.

  “Do you think about it?” he asked.

  “Huh?”

  “Do you think about what Logan told us about spirit shades?”

  That is exactly what we were going to do. Ignore the obvious and move on to something else. We were so good at it now, there had to be some type of commendation for our expertise in the game of avoidance.

  I nodded. “All the time. Maya could be a Faerie. Wouldn’t it make sense? Elves and witches can bring a vampire back from reversion, but to the best of my knowledge, they can’t manipulate magic. I am assuming Faeries can.” Then I stopped and considered another less than desirable option. “Can demons feed vampires?”

  I waited impatiently while he thought about it. Based on what Logan had said about the Faeries, was being a demon any worse?

  “Not to my knowledge,” Ethan finally said.

  “And elves?”

  He nodded.

  Giving up the pretense of completing the meal, I slid the plate away. “I can read the Clostra. Josh can’t nor can you. You are—were holding the magic of an elf and can’t read it. Josh is a witch and can’t read it…” I just couldn’t finish. The only thing it left was Faeries.

  “So can Seena,” he pointed out.

  “Yes, but we don’t know what she is. We just know that she isn’t really related to me,” I said. “This means she probably isn’t a witch.”

  I had said it aloud, but the concern was there on Ethan’s face, a flashing warning that this was just another problem added to the many we already had.

  “We’ll deal with that later. We need to remove the curse so that you can get the Aufero back.”

  I couldn’t have agreed more, but on the subject of Logan, there was something that bothered me even more. “The Tre’ase that created Maya, I really want to know who it is. After all, my survival is based on his. If he dies, so does Maya and so do I,” I said.

  “When we get back, we should pay Logan another visit.” His voice was rigid and coarse; the idea of going to Logan’s was as grating of an idea for him as it was for me.

  But I couldn’t stop thinking about what he had said about the host and hosted relationship. If Maya was indeed a Faerie, was I strong enough to counter her actions and motives? At what point would my actions be hers and not mine?

  Ethan didn’t leave immediately. Instead, he remained near my table. “Skylar, don’t make things awkward between us. Okay?” he said. His deep-seated gaze held mine, waiting for an answer.

  Don’t make things awkward? We had slid past awkward at record speed and were loitering in an odd spot between weird and complex. Instead of pointing that out, I simply nodded my head.

  Yeah, let’s just pretend things between us aren’t awkward.

  We drove through the heart of Brooklyn and I wished we had time to stop to see some of the historic sites that we passed. Some areas were still fighting off gentrification, with dilapidated buildings with tattered signs advertising long-ago specials. Debris, broken glass, and refuse cluttered the streets. The buildings had character, the dusty homes told a story, and older people sat out on the front porches watching the children as they played.

  Josh kept looking in my direction, his lips lifted into a little smirk. “Go ahead Sky, ask.”

  “I just don’t get it. Fae magic is vastly different from the witches’. How will they be able to help?” Especially since most fae magic was very limited: defensive magic, cognitive manipulations, premonitions, and minor spells. “What are they going to do, will the curse away?” I asked. I hoped they could help us, but since our conversation with Logan, I had put the faes, along with mages, in the innocuous file.

  “Yes, the majority of faes’ magic is limited, but just like we have levels, so do they. There are some that are quite strong, and their minor spells are not very trivial at all.”

  “But it’s not the same. You told me that elven, fae, and witches’ magic worked differently, like being on a different frequency. How will a fae be able to remove a curse made by a witch?” I asked.

  “Just think of it like opening a door. Using a key is ideal, which would be equivalent to a witch removing it, but a sledgehammer or locksmith tools will do the trick. Let’s just say that if these faes can help us, it will be like taking a big axe to the door,” he said.

  I wasn’t sure what to expect when meeting the faes, but the bearded man that answered the door definitely wasn’t it. The long, full brown coarse beard was a peculiar difference from his bald head. A pair of charcoal, trendy square-rimmed glasses completed his look. A red long-sleeved shirt peeked out from under his green Kermit the Frog t-shirt. He greeted Ethan and Josh with a hug, patting them firmly on their backs. His smile was so broad and welcoming it surprised me, not with Josh, but with Ethan. Most people weren’t that ecstatic about meeting him, and definitely not about a second visit.

  “Austin, thank you for meeting with us,” Ethan said.

  “Orchid, they’re here,” he shouted as he stepped aside to let us in and reveal an eclectic, rustic dust-colored brownstone. The brick was adorned with metal wall art, and the other plain beige walls were spruced with brightly colored abstract paintings. The furniture was a mishmash of eccentric urban chic and Bohemian. I hadn’t decided if it was wondrously distinctive to the point I couldn’t fully appreciate it, or simply lazy and haphazard decorating.

  I still hadn’t come to a decision when a woman squealed as she entered the room. She jumped into Ethan’s arms and planted a long lingering kiss on his lips. Austin didn’t seem at all upset by the display. And he was just as apathetic when she did the same to Josh. I was the only one startled when she pulled me into her arms, hugged me, and planted and kiss just as enthusiastically on my mouth. When a menthol breeze nicked at my lips, I remembered Winter’s warning that a fae could bind you to truth with a kiss. I was sure that Orchid had dealt with Ethan enough to know that he g
ave the answer you needed, which wasn’t always necessarily the truth.

  She straightened her dark ivory slouch beanie and brushed away sapphire and black long bangs, the only hair she allowed to peek from under the hat. The dark hair made her deep apricot skin more vibrant. The button-down plaid shirt of interlocking shades of yellows, beiges, browns and golds blended well with her odd gold eyes that seemed a little too pale. One look at Austin and I realized his glasses were distracting from eyes that were just as pale and golden. Taking both Josh’s and Ethan’s wrists, she flounced away as she guided them into the house.

  “Come in, have a seat.”

  I couldn’t help but watch her the way I did those hyperactive toy dogs at the park. She zipped around the room, straightening pillows, aligning the trinkets on the tables, all the while speaking like a person on an espresso rush. She was going to wear herself out.

  We had a seat on the overstuffed sofa while Orchid went to the kitchen. She came back with bottled water, milk, and cookies. The cookies didn’t look like anything one should serve to guests. In fact, they looked like something you would discreetly toss in the garbage before pulling out a bag of store-bought ones. They looked dry, with a few morsels of chocolate chips scattered in them. And who puts out only five cookies?

  “Have one. That’s all you’ll need,” Austin said as he lifted the plate towards me.

  I started to grab one when Ethan clasped my hand and held it. “Thank you for the offer, but unfortunately this trip is strictly business.”

  Austin nodded politely and placed them on the table or what they were trying to pass off as a coffee table, but was actually a piece of charred wood cut in an odd misshapen clover atop a brass frame. Our “strictly business trip” didn’t stop Josh from reaching for a cookie. When Ethan shot him a sharp disapproving look, he simply took a napkin off the coffee table and wrapped three “fun” cookies in it before shoving them into his pocket.

  The narrow features of Orchid’s face sharpened as the lips were pulled into a barely visible line as she scowled. “So, Marcia must really be causing trouble,” she said as she plopped into Austin’s lap and relaxed back against him. With his neck cradled against her neck, they were a perfect fit. He was as calm as she was hyperactive, or perhaps he had already had a couple of the cookies.

  “What isn’t she doing?” Josh stated, exasperated, his hands wiping over his face.

  She smiled. “Ethan, what brings you to us?”

  His face turned an odd shade of red as the corded muscles of his neck were pulled taut. “We discussed what I needed on the phone,” was all he said, in a strained voice.

  She sighed heavily. “Ethan, I am stronger than I was as a teenager; you aren’t going to be able to resist it. Just relax and talk to me.”

  But he didn’t. He repeated his statement again.

  She rolled her eyes and turned to me. “Skylar, can you tell me what happened?”

  Ethan spoke up. “I would prefer to handle everything.”

  “Of course you would. Ethan, I understand your need for discretion in many things, but I need as much information as possible.” Then she grinned. “You are going to hurt yourself trying to deny me my answers. I can’t do that to you.” She turned to me. “Skylar, please answer my question.”

  The information dam broke. Everything that had occurred since I acquired the Aufero was revealed to her in annoyingly specific detail. Her eyes widened when I told her about Ethan’s grandmother being a dark elf and what had happened to him after she died. She chuckled when I told her I had tried to drown Marcia and that one of the witches smelled like onions and listened very carefully as I went over the spell, interjecting occasionally with questions. And I told her everything I could without a filter. She asked: Did I remember the spell? I wrote down as many of the words I could remember. Then she inquired about the animal they had used. I went into detail about everything they did, before, during and afterward, giving her a descriptive reenactment of what had been done. The level of intrigue on her face was only surpassed by that on Ethan’s face. Orchid’s small smile widened.

  For a long time she took in the information, processing it, with both her and Austin’s faces void of anything usable. “Will we be the first to try to remove the curse?” Austin asked.

  Josh nodded. “The moment I bring up Marcia’s name, most witches refuse to be involved. Even those that I know who despise her will not do anything to provoke her wrath. And the rest don’t like to mess with curses, it is too dangerous,” he admitted.

  While Austin and Orchid occasionally asked questions, Josh and Ethan sat in anticipation. I couldn’t anticipate anything because I wasn’t that confident in the first place. My lack of knowledge regarding faes made me pessimistic.

  “We will not be able to remove the curse, but we can weaken it. Josh and Ethan, we will need you for it.”

  They agreed without hesitation and with blind confidence. “How do you plan to do this and why do you need them?” I asked.

  It was bad enough I was cursed. I didn’t want bring them into it. What if things didn’t go as expected? I had become a cynic, something I wasn’t happy about.

  Orchid grinned. “I like you.”

  I think that people that kiss me on the lips should like me, at least a little, so it was good that she did.

  “We will dilute it. I will find which of my animals is your compatible and transfer it through them and then transfer it back. It will need to be done quickly, because I don’t want to kill them.”

  Images of little kittens and puppies dying from being used as a compatible animal were persistent thoughts in my mind.

  Sensing my concern, she made a melodious, deep sound, holding the note for a long time, progressing to a crescendo of high-pitched sounds. When she stopped, there was a synchronized swooshing sound, and within minutes a group of snakes slithered in our direction, various sizes and colors. They sidled in so close I lost count after twenty-four. They wound across the floor and over the legs of the chair. It was only when they reached Austin and Orchid did they form a single line splitting off toward them.

  I tried to be as calm as Josh and Ethan, who didn’t seem to have a problem with a nest of snakes coming toward us. They’re just a group of Winters, nothing to be alarmed about, I told myself. But I had only seen Winter in animal form a couple of times and as she was gross and scaly, just like the ones coming our way. There wasn’t any way to sugarcoat it.

  Austin and Orchid held each one in their hand, clasping the head and holding eye contact with each one for a few seconds before releasing it. The serpents came toward us, some slithering around our legs while the others slipped up them. After several minutes, we each had a snake near us. A black one with odd patterns lay at Ethan’s feet. Mine was a silver, beige, and rose color and so long its body could wrap around my thigh. The snake that picked Josh had coiled around his leg, rubbing its snub head against him. His compatible was more affectionate than ours, which didn’t seem to bother him.

  When Orchid made a low, deep, throaty sound, the snakes reared back and then struck out, latching on to our legs, drawing blood. A collective gasp filled the room as the snakes sucked blood from us. It was a few seconds before the grip loosened. Ethan was able to pull his off his leg. He held it in a stranglehold.

  “Ethan, let go of Franky,” Orchid commanded softly. The moment he released it, the snaked sidled in next to him while Ethan glared at it. The snake hissed at him several times. It may have been Ethan’s magically compatible animal, but it definitely didn’t like him.

  Is that how it worked? Shouldn’t they have said, “Hey, I am going to bring a nest of snakes out, one of them is going to bite the hell out of your leg. Are you cool with that?” You warn people about something like that.

  Josh and I waited patiently for our compatible snakes to finish while Orchid snuggled with the others, as though she were playing with a little dog. Their split tongues darted out, planting kisses on her face. Gross.

 
; “Very well, I will need a couple of hours to get the others. I suspect I will only need two more fae,” she said.

  We received the same farewell, a kiss to remove the spell and an overenthusiastic hug. Orchid was affectionate so it was expected, but I was surprised at how friendly Austin had become. He hugged me after unraveling Tara, my compatible, from around my arm. She had become quite fond of me and had to be torn away.

  Three hours later we returned to Austin and Orchid’s and were greeted with two other faes. Austin attempted a quick introduction, but the nervous tension was too high and everyone just regarded each other with a casual nod.

  Strong but calm magic wafted throughout the room. It was like standing on the beach and feeling the breeze that comes off the ocean. It was too soothing, which made me doubt its effectiveness. How could magic like that hold up against Marcia’s and the Creed’s, which felt like a bristling windstorm.

  We surrounded the table that was placed in the middle of the living room, where Orchid had been since we arrived. After several moments, she finally looked up and with a confident smile, she laid out powders, salts, and a large dark stone. She asked us to get closer before she placed the serpents in the middle of the items, who busied themselves with crawling over and around the stone.

  “Are you ready?” she asked us radiating a level of assurance that chipped at my doubt. She handed us our compatibles and once again their fangs sank into our arms, drawing blood, holding on longer than they had before. The powders were spread around each of them once they were placed back on the table, and another pale stone in front each snake.

  Then things happened quickly. The four faes chanted, then Orchid pierced the skin of each snake, just enough to draw blood, which mixed with the powder that surrounded them. The mixture took form, molding together before it covered the stone, the chanting came faster, and the faes’ pale eyes were nearly white. Their magic was no longer a gentle breeze off the ocean, it was a blizzard chilling the room, tugging at our breath. A fiery force of power engulfed the room, expanding and retracting with ferocity. Thrashing into us with such force it was painful. Josh was the first to collapse to his knees, and I followed. Ethan stood—barely. Orchid slammed to the ground convulsing. The other faes soon dropped to the ground, their bodies writhing uncontrollably for seconds and then—nothing. They all lay on the ground motionless, their pale eyes rolled back, their last breaths taken only moments before, bodies stiff and warm.