Shoot the Messenger: A Reverse Harem Space Fantasy (Messenger Chronicles Book 1)

by Pippa Dacosta

  “More fae are arriving daily. They’re setting up Calicto as a base,” Talen continued. “Using the magic Eledan found as proof Halow is theirs by divine right.”

  Eledan had wanted to keep that well for himself, which was probably why he had returned to Arcon after the invasion. Without his tek heart, he would have been unstoppable. Oberon had been wise to eliminate his brother by way of his mother’s magic.

  I swung my legs off the bed and rested my elbows on my knees, bowing my head. A book sat neatly beside the bed. The one with the black-winged bird on the cover. Talen’s gift.

  I didn’t deserve it.

  I got to my feet. My coat and whip were gone. All I wore were my sweatpants and a tank top. The fae marks wrapped around my arms took on a new weight now that Talen and Kellee knew why I had so many.

  I approached the glass. It was ironic how I looked out on Talen when, not so long ago, I had been the one looking in. Did he think it ironic too, or was it justice? I pressed my hand to the glass in front of him. He blinked but didn’t smile, didn’t do anything. Just looked, masking everything from his face. Kellee would have told him everything. The two of them were inseparable. But Talen knew what it was like. He would understand. He would have had saru in his household. He knew how I had lived, how I would do anything to survive, how I owed Oberon my life. My prince was my world. Had Talen always known I was made of lies?

  His violet fae eyes searched my face, perhaps for hope. I almost wished I could give it to him.

  “Thank you for the book,” I said.

  Talen nodded. Kellee growled and turned away. The marshal was easier to read.

  “This is a mistake,” I told them. Oberon would kill them for this. They should have left me on Calicto. They could have crafted lives somewhere. Now? “When I was a nobody, my mission was incomplete—”

  “You were never a nobody,” Kellee said. “That was a lie.”

  I hesitated. I’d lied, yes. But I had it in me to do much worse. “Eledan will tell his brother everything. He won’t have a choice. This rock won’t keep you safe.”

  “You used us.” That was from Talen. It hurt all the more because he was so right. I couldn’t deny it.

  “Yes. I used you both as a means to an end.”

  He briefly looked away. “Was any of it real?”

  I could tell them my feelings for them were real, that I knew I wouldn’t be alive without them, that I owed them more than they could know and it pained me inside to hear the distrust in their voices and see the disgust on their faces. But what good would it do? Oberon would come, and soon, I would be my prince’s shadow once more.

  If Oberon knew about Talen and Kellee, he would order me to kill them. I couldn’t. I couldn’t choose between my prince and my friends. “No,” I lied. “None of it was real. I do not care for you. I used you both. You mean nothing to me.”

  Talen made a low noise in the back of his throat and turned away from my cage. I bit my tongue, refusing to allow myself the luxury of telling them the truth.

  Kellee dropped onto one of the couches and spread an arm across the back. His smirk held none of the warmth I had found in his smiles before. “Your prince will come for you, and we’ll be waiting when he does.”

  He would get himself and Talen killed.

  I curled my hand into a fist and thumped it against the glass. “You can’t stop him. You can’t stop them. They’re here, and there is no going back. Kellee, you more than anyone know what they’re capable of. Leave here—”

  “You want me to run?” He chuckled. “I never run from a fight.”

  “And all your people are dead.”

  He sneered, revealing lengthening fangs. “We can stop them. Me, Talen, and you—Kesh Lasota. We will stop them. Because, despite all the lies, all the illusions and misdirection, you saved those people on Calicto. And you want to save more. But up until now, you couldn’t. You’ve always been in a cage, always been someone’s slave, but now you have a choice.”

  I opened my arms and stepped back from the glass. Nothing had changed. I was still in a cage or was it a goldfish bowl and I was supposed to be Kellee’s precious little fish.

  “You can get close to them. You know how they work, how they think, and you’re in the confidence of their new king. A king who only rose to power because you killed the queen.”

  “I loved the queen.” At least, I believed I had, but sometimes even I fell for my own karushit lies. Kesh’s life, I’d fallen for that one. Fallen for the people the pretend messenger held dear. Hulia, Merry, and others throughout the years.

  “Your love is a lie,” Talen said, his back to me as he crouched beside his cot and rifled through his books. “You don’t know real love.”

  Kellee arched an eyebrow as if to say, “Even the fae agrees you’re a cold-hearted bitch.”

  “You have a choice, Kesh Lasota,” Kellee said, leaning forward. “You don’t have to kill for them. You can save people with us. You are in a powerful position, and for the first time in your life, you can use that power against the fae. You’ve already killed a queen. What’s a dead king to you?”

  His heroic ideas were pretty, his hope blinding and so typical of the marshal’s view of the worlds. “I don’t save people, Kellee.”

  “Liar,” he drawled.

  What he was asking was impossible. All my life I had killed for the fae. Without them, I wasn’t sure who or what I was.

  “Lie to them as you did to us,” Kellee continued, sensing my hesitation. “And they’ll never see the blow coming.”

  I glared hard back at the vakaru and the honorable ideals shining in his green eyes. I had known a boy like him, a proud boy, a boy filled with defiance and heroism. Aeon had begged me to help him, and together he and I had plotted against our fae masters. He had trusted me, and when it mattered most, I had turned on him and killed my fellow saru to the sounds of a cheering crowd, earning my first marks in service to the crown. Deceit was all I knew and I was good at it. Did I have it in me to wield deceit against the crown instead of for it?

  “And if you don’t…” Kellee lifted a syringe, the liquid sloshing inside. “Eledan will be waiting in your dreams.”

  I slammed a palm against the glass, rattling my cage. “You would use his abuse against me?”

  “Let’s get one thing clear, Messenger.” His eyes were cold, hard, and honest. “I cared for you. I believed in you. And you shattered my trust.”

  “That’s your mistake!”

  He waited, letting my words ring throughout the cavern. “And I can’t afford to make that mistake again. I have no idea who you are, and until I do, I’ll trust you as much as I would any enemy.” His beast shadowed him, darkening his eyes and sharpening all his teeth to points. Here, now, he was the predator, the last of his species and I was his prey. “Do we have a deal, Wraithmaker?”

  Kellee’s cage or Faerie’s?

  I glanced at Talen and found him lying on his side in his bed, flicking through a book as though this were just a minor discussion. His eyes flicked up, and a fierce resolve burned there.

  When I faced Kellee, I shrugged and backed away from the glass. He would use me like I had used him. That was fair.

  “We have a deal, Marshal,” I lied. As soon as I got free of the cage, I would return to my prince—my king—and in doing so, I would keep both Kellee and Talen safe. Because Kellee was right. I could save lives. Theirs.

  Kesh’s, Talen’s & Kellee’s journey continues in Messenger #2, coming July 2018.

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  What to read next by Pippa DaCosta

  More fae?

  Read The London Fae series

  More demons?

  Read the Veil Series

  More anti-hero urban fantasy action?
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br />   Read the Soul Eater series

  More gritty sci-fi?

  Read the 1000 Revolution series

  More dark fantasy?

  Read The Heartstone Thief

  Also by Pippa DaCosta

  The Veil Series

  Wings of Hope ~ The Veil Series Prequel Novella

  Beyond The Veil (#1)

  Devil May Care (#2)

  Darkest Before Dawn (#3)

  Drowning In The Dark (#4)

  Ties That Bind (#5)

  Get your free e-copy of ‘Wings Of Hope’ by signing up to Pippa’s mailing list, here.

  Chaos Rises

  Chaos Rises (#1)

  Chaos Unleashed (#2)

  Chaos Falls (#3)

  Soul Eater

  Hidden Blade (#1)

  Witches’ Bane (#2)

  See No Evil (#3)

  Scorpion Trap (#4)

  Serpent’s Game (#5)

  Edge of Forever (#6)

  The 1000 Revolution

  #1: Betrayal

  #2: Escape

  #3: Trapped

  #4: Trust

  New Adult Urban Fantasy

  City Of Fae, London Fae #1

  City of Shadows, London Fae #2