A Court For Fairies (Dark Heralds Book 1)

by Lynn S.

  Esteban had visited Aval once in a while, though his presence was hardly noticeable. It was during those dreams he forgot upon waking that Francis Alexander led him to identify that dhampyr scent as something to pursue. That was the main reason he became enraptured with Marissa. It was also why it was so easy for him to commune with Adriana, having a deeper understanding of her secrets. He fell in love with a woman meant to be the bane of his existence. Every touch, each caress, the kisses he sought after were like sweet drops of poison. They must have perceived it at a cellular level, in the depth of their subconscious. They fought as much as they made love, trying to repel one another and inevitably being drawn together once more.

  “You are telling me Esteban’s body…” Carla started.

  “Yes. It is immune to the vampyr’s poison,” Francis interrupted. “He has tasted her lips, known her intimately…been inside her. Both his Sidhe and human side have been closer to her than any of our kind ever was with such a creature. And Marissa’s compatibility to our bloodline is stronger than the O’Reillys or your mother’s family ever were.”

  Alexander looked up to Esteban, thoughtful. The younger O’Reilly was suspended above him in eternal agony, wrapped in dark silken strings and ash between heaven and earth.

  “You must keep her alive, Carla. I felt your doubt and murderous intentions when you discovered she might be a dhampyr. But she hasn’t tasted blood yet, and therefore she is pure. She is still the key to Esteban’s return.”

  “And that is exactly what brings me here, Father.” She might have had instances of tension with Isabel, but Carla was still loyal to her sister. Carla knew the passage of time endeared Isabel toward her lesser, halfling child.

  In moments of weakness she had seen her cry over Esteban, worried or bitter, with a depth of feeling that went beyond their human charade. She stepped closer to her father, securing both hands against the arm of the chair, marking her words. “Isabel is waiting for the return of her son.”

  “And there will be a joyous return, once that body is ready and restored,” Francis assured. “In the meantime, my advice is to keep Marissa distracted. Esteban has tried to contact her twice, through dreams. If she were to believe these revelations in the slightest, all would be ruined! Submit her, bleed her if necessary! But under no circumstance allow for the transition to be completed. I need her able to conceive children for this house.”

  Carla said her goodbyes with a reverent bow. But before leaving she asked, “Did you have a hand in Esteban’s accident?”

  Her father smiled. Small, serrated teeth gleamed between his lips. “You give me too much credit, daughter.”

  He paused, waiting for a sign of complicity on his daughter’s behalf, but Carla was stern as ever. She simply walked backward into the mist until there was nothing but a flash at the level of her eyes.

  The old Sidhe knew his daughter well enough to be sure she’d keep faithful, though disappointed in his ways. They had requested a favor not only of their father, but of all the Dark Heralds, and she was afraid the price would never be met. Esteban would not be freed.

  “Kar-lagh…Carla…” Her father whispered softly into the mist. “I’ll never understand your fear. Of all the houses among the dark Fae, there is only one with enough power, and that is House Alexander.”

  Francis stood from his chair, dragging his leg over the floor, a painful grimace set on his face. Above him, Esteban whimpered ever so slightly. The dark Fae walked toward an old coat of arms hanging in the hallway and took a small, dusty bundle of cloth that had been hiding there for the longest time. He opened the folded cloth, careful not to overexpose himself to the iron of the dagger it protected. Even touching the small weapon through the cloth made his skin burn. Francis recited some words and a dry, cold breeze lifted him, the magic knowing exactly where to take him.

  He was featherlight, as light as those dark hummingbirds were carved on the seal of his house. Once he had reached Esteban, Francis stopped to look at him for a moment. The patterns underneath his skin were drying up; soon they’d find their way through his skin and push themselves out, opening small indentations in the process, raining down like shattered crystal drenched in blood. The young man’s humanity was winning at the cost of his own life. He’d soon be dead, and wasted.

  Francis gave some thought to how much it would take to rearrange those features. He found Esteban’s light brown hair offensive, as well as those hazel eyes that moved rapidly under his shut eyelids, forever prisoners of trauma. The young O’Reilly didn’t have the delicate features of the Sidhe. His face was square shaped and the arch of his brows too solemn. His mouth at rest didn’t curve in that smirk that spoke of mischief even in sleep, and yet…they had a lot in common where it counted.

  Francis made a deep, long cut down the length of his forearm. He was so old he hardly bled, yet his essence seeped through that wound, looking for a new home in Esteban. The young O’Reilly suddenly opened his eyes and the hazel was taken over by ink-black. Francis was happy enough with his little experiment. Creatures such as he took chances, living in a world of all or nothing. He had seen enough. Waited enough. Without a second thought, he plunged the dagger into his heart, ready to expire.

  His last vision, edged by the pain of cold iron, was of a pair of red eyes protected underneath dark glasses and a steady hand closing its grip on a steering wheel of a vehicle.

  All pieces were in place.

  Chapter XVII

  The Day They All Returned Home–Part I

  The road stretched, unending. Adriana’s grip on the steering wheel was so tight the soft leather covering it was starting to crack, leaving dark veins on the upholstering. She was desperate, the transition demanded her body accept the change in stages and she had no time to spare. Yet she was forced into slumber by her ever present instinct. Those hours of day sleep were vital for a successful vampyr to emerge from a dhampyr. She collapsed on the floor, as defenseless as her victim, less than fifteen minutes after the kill. Upon waking, Adriana hurried, though she found herself robbed of precious time when having to wash caked blood from her body and matted hair.

  She took a shower, never minding the dismembered body sprawled throughout her living room. Finding a pair of dark jeans and a t-shirt to slip on, Adriana’s most important accessory that night was a pair of dark glasses she fished out of the nightstand’s drawer. They were meant to hide the light shade of her eyes, now given to turn flaming red at the slightest provocation.

  Before leaving, she set the air conditioner to low and was grateful for the steady cool temperatures outside. She had no time for tidying up. In another instance, someone loyal to the clan might have made the trip from Kingston to set things right, but since Pappa Popescu’s disgraceful death, Adriana had burned all her bridges. She was already used to the idea of leaving that corpse behind to be found in a couple of days. After all, it was the best way to force herself to leave. A hundred years in the Tri-State Area was a little too much.

  Then there was the matter of trivial pursuits that aggravated her as a mortal and now simply unnerved her as a vampyr. Living in a city like New York meant she never found herself in need of a car. And then, even as every joint felt like it was on fire and her fangs kept dropping, she was forced to take a taxi and wait in queue at a rental terminal on Northern Boulevard. The aroma of hot flesh and coursing blood was overwhelming to say the least. By the time she was handed the keys to her rental, Adriana looked positively famished once more. Keeping the thirst at bay was the first solid triumph of the day.

  It was not as easy, though, to maintain a clear mind. Ghosts volunteered as her travel companions. Once in a while, when the street light became scarce and the moon broke through her windows, she caught a glimpse of Bastian in the passenger seat.

  “Tsk, tsk…” Adriana clicked her tongue and arched her brow. If this was an apparition and not the product of her imagination, then her dead husband might be a little more than she could handle at the moment. “Ba
stian, love. I’m not one for peace offerings or sorry speeches. Let’s say I tried to keep up with all my promises, I swear. But I’ve lived long enough to know there is no such thing as a definite, just the crossing of fingers and well-intentioned maybes.”

  He didn’t answer. He looked right through her, the olive-green of his eyes vacant of any spark of life, fixed on something beyond her. Adriana waited for Bastian to answer, but the specter faded as she took a turn off the highway. It didn’t bother her. The truth was she was happy about it. There were souls that need their rest.

  Her father was harder to shake off. Whenever she looked through the rearview mirror, a pair of red, violent eyes burned at her, as if crossing from another realm.

  “Patience was not your strong suit, Pappa, but you were cruel. So you learned to wait, knowing that the day I thought I’d won was exactly the moment I started to lose. Now blood is calling and I feel closer to you than I ever was.”

  She would have given anything to control her ravings then, to make Bastian come back and pretend the tip of his fingers traced the edge of her face lovingly, devotedly. But the instinct, rooted more in survival than nostalgia, thought it better to unsettle her, exacerbating her until violence rose to the surface of her skin. And so it pushed forward, teasing. More than once Adriana felt the stench of her father’s hot and putrid breath reach her nostrils, the puffs of it so close to her neck that she feared a vengeful bite. His deep and disdainful laughter kept her company for the longest stretch of road.

  After a tortuous while it was gone, but she no sooner caught her breath before someone else showed up. It was Esteban. The light brown of his hair was made darker by the constant meandering shadows of the road. Though his generous smile seemed intact, soon enough it turned into a painful grimace. For the first time that night, she wondered if she was being visited by the dead, if it was all a figment of her imagination, or if as vampyr she was just connecting to Marissa’s pain on a whole new level.

  “I’m so sorry, sweetheart. I know you are a figment of my imagination, but I just want to tell you, be at ease. Wherever you are. I’ll save her.” This time, Adriana felt the weight of a passenger press against the driver’s seat from behind. She could feel a firm hand on her shoulder and that touch almost forced her to turn her eyes away from the road. He was there, no trick of her instinct, and Esteban had something to say.

  “Do you want to know where I am? Somewhere between heaven and earth, thinking that they all know our secrets; all but her.” And he was gone.

  Adriana tried to connect with Marissa to no avail. The connection between vampyr and dhampyr was meant to facilitate a psychic link with her daughter. Instead, all she could see was the indigo of night, breaking into a thousand shards of black.

  ***

  Pain stabbed at Marissa’s temple. Ever since waking that morning, she had been trying to avoid close contact with the women of the house. But her increasing thirst and episodes of revolting nausea had caught Isabel’s attention. The struggle to avoid the need for blood to seal her own transition was getting the best of her.

  “Are you feeling all right, Marissa dear?”

  Marissa was terrified of Isabel’s touch. Esteban’s mother had offered her a tall glass of cold water and the simple brush of her fingers made the young woman want to hit her. Focusing her need for violence on the glass, she held it so hard it cracked.

  “Do you think it necessary to call Doctor Roberts?” Isabel inquired, innocent of the fact that even her words were painful to hear.

  Marissa just gulped down the ice water and made a negative hand gesture. The doctor will insist on a checkup, she thought. And only God knows what he might find. She distracted Isabel from the idea by asking about Carla.

  “Where has Carla gone today?”

  “Mother went out early. You must recall what she spoke about this morning. Family, coming in last minute. That extra bedroom came in handy after all. They are a little bit old-fashioned, to put it lightly. Won’t lower themselves to use a GPS, so Carla went to meet them at the interstate to lead them here.”

  The dark-haired woman tried to comfort her, but Marissa didn’t want to be touched. This time it was obvious as she moved her hand away from Isabel toward the edge of the table. Marissa looked at Isabel through half-lidded eyes. The woman looked like an alabaster doll in her perfection. Her hair fell like heavy waves of black amber over her shoulders, not a strand out of place. Her hands were soft and not at all affected by those little imperfections brought by age. It was as if a veil had been lifted and Marissa had the chance to witness uncommon, alluring beauty as she had never seen. The fabric of the soft lilac on her summer dress was kissed with the aroma of lavender. Marissa took a deep breath and the soft scent both calmed and lured her in. She went so far as to touch the hem of the dress and brush her fingers against Isabel’s bare leg. It was all a little too intimate for the way they usually treated one another, but Isabel gave no other sign than being pleased about it.

  “Do you like this old thing?” She trapped Marissa’s hand against her own. “It will be yours, then. I’ve kept it in perfect condition. It is a vintage piece of sorts; my husband’s favorite. I take it out just for special occasions, some of which were important for Esteban as well.” Intertwining her fingers with Marissa’s, Isabel brought the young woman’s hand to her lips and kissed it softly.

  Marissa was stunned by the display of emotion, and scared of her own reaction as well. Even as she interpreted Isabel’s as a motherly gesture, that new voice inside her whispered something else. The young woman saw it clearly as it unfolded in her head. “This is your chance. She is teasing us. Do it now while she still believes she has the upper hand. Just get close enough. Lose yourself in the richness of that scent, breathe her in, and then tear through her skin and truly taste her. It is nothing more than what she deserves.”

  Isabel must have felt something, because she let her hand go in a fluid yet measured motion. But still, she looked at her, arching a brow and going back to that perfect imitation of a smile.

  “You have seen the worst of me this weekend,” she said, standing up and walking around Marissa. “Carla has been stern to me to make me see. There is no excuse. I invited you to be a part of our family and then, whenever you try to reach out, I close a door. It is not what Esteban envisioned for us. I am not being the best mother, or friend. I feel you trust me less now than you did four days ago.”

  While Marissa made an effort to consider her words, Isabel opened one of the kitchen drawers behind her, pulling out a thick silver chain long enough to grab its length with both hands. Marissa felt metal against her skin, first surprisingly cold as Isabel twisted it about her neck and then searingly hot. The response of her instinct, barely rising, was cut off before Isabel’s preternatural speed. In seconds, the dark-haired woman had two twists of the chain against her neck. Isabel managed the chain as if it were rope or cloth, slipping it between her fingers until she held it firmly in her grasp. Marissa’s struggle was in vain. She tried to lunge forward on the table, but her sudden movement just made the silver bite in further, imbedding it in her skin, burning even more. She choked, gasping for air, right before losing consciousness.

  “Isabel! Have you finally gone mad?” Carla’s hand kept the younger Alejandro from her murderous intent. Isabel had always made a show of her temper flares, but this little number risked it all. After her conversation with Francis Alexander, Carla was sure a slip this big was set to cost them dearly.

  “You said it yourself, Carla. She is transitioning! For a moment I thought she was on to us.” Isabel kept pointing her accusing finger at the unconscious Marissa, even while Carla ridded the blonde woman of the silver twisted in her neck. She was careful in uncoiling the pliable metal chain from Marissa’s skin, but stripes of flesh and even strands of muscle were exposed or torn away with each turn. Had she not arrived in time, Isabel might have decapitated her.

  Carla turned Marissa on her back, dragging her upper
body on top of the table. Pressing her hands against her bleeding, blistered neck, the woman started pronouncing a restoring chant. All Sidhe, even dark ones, carried within them the power to manipulate life magic. The main difference was that unlike the more benign sons of Aval, they only used it to their advantage.

  Outside their window, the sun had sunk between the hills and mist threaded softly. The night was not at all dark, but closer to gray, never quite giving in. Silent, waiting. Carla knew Marissa would be unconscious for the rest of the evening. The power of her words sent her into a deep sleep.

  It was no time to scold Isabel. After all, they had a ritual to perform. Carla kept close to her sister, silently observing. Isabel had found a purpose once again and she was as concentrated as ever on the upcoming task, pausing ever so slightly to smile. Carla had to tell her something, but before she even started, it was time to weigh Isabel’s affection against her duties to House Alexander.

  Chapter XVIII

  The Day They All Returned Home–Part II

  “I have spoken to Francis.” Carla fixed her eyes on her younger sister. She needed to drive certain points home. The elder had always been a bridge between Isabel and Alexander. Their posing as mother and daughter for years had deepened their bond. However, to Isabel, Francis Alexander was little more than a stranger. She recognized being one of his brood, and therefore, obeyed him as expected of a Dark Herald, but she never had the chance to commune with him as a father.

  It was up to Carla to convey the message and make her understand. She measured her words carefully, to see how much she could count on Isabel staying steadfast to their cause. She had guessed at certain demands the younger Sidhe might not agree to, yet they were crucial to Francis Alexander.