by Katie May
Why did that even matter?
And why the fuck was I so emotional?
Realization settled over me like a heavy cloak.
The asshole Kings.
They had done something to me.
I knew, from both research and experience, that Incubi were able to
manipulate emotions if they were powerful enough. All it took was skin to
skin contact.
My mind flittered back to when the King had kissed my hand.
Since then, everything had felt enhanced, as if I was seeing the world
through a new lens. Shinier. Brighter.
Those fucking assholes!
The despair turned to anger, white hot. It threatened to burn me from the
inside out. Burn me alive.
Through the hazy cloud of fury, I realized that I was playing directly into
their hands. They wanted a strong emotion from me, planned on it, and no
doubt were waiting for me back in the ballroom.
Did they want my fury?
Because they could fucking have it.
Mentally, I planned using my dagger to carve off their skin. The Incubus
King would go first, of course. I would pay extra attention to his nutsack. I
wondered how appealing he would be with a castrated penis.
Fuming, I marched towards my dagger and picked it up. I was so focused
on my mission that I almost missed the statue mere inches from me. Almost.
But I saw it.
A scream threatened to burst out even as I took a step backwards, eyes
widening in horror.
Killian.
Even in stone, his handsome, chiseled face was impossible to miss. His
lips were pursed into a perfect O. Unlike the other statue, he didn’t seem
scared, only confused. He was wearing the same outfit I had seen on him in
the ball, including the Incubus crest on his jacket lapel.
Horror filled me.
What the hell was this? Had someone been commissioned to carve a
statue of Killian? Or...
Dread curled in my stomach.
Or was that Killian?
I stumbled backwards, tripping over my own two feet, and hit something
hard.
Another statue.
His broad shoulders, extended canines, and hate filled eyes were
impossible to miss, though that hate had never been directed at me.
Lupe.
He, too, was dressed exactly as I had seen him previously.
“They were looking for you,” a soft voice said from the shadows. There,
flowers and hedges rose from the ground in a sort of makeshift maze. With
the darkness blanketing the garden and only a thin shaft of moonlight, it was
impossible to make out the figure.
I held the dagger steady, pushing my emotions to the side. It was
surprisingly difficult to do so with the spell heightening them.
“Who are you?” I asked darkly.
The voice was a girl’s, of that I was certain.
“While you were talking to your Shadow, I told them that I saw you
leave. They, of course, ran after you like obedient puppies.”
Something moved in the distance, and I took another step closer. From
this angle, I could see down another pathway.
Three statues glinted in the moonlight, one of which was sitting. Dair,
Jax, and Devlin.
Anger hummed through my veins. There was no words adequate enough
to describe it. It was the sort of anger people started wars for. Fear,
simultaneously, twisted my gut.
These were my men, my mates, and this bitch had harmed them, maybe
forever.
What if I could never free them from their stone prison?
“Release them.” I didn’t recognize my voice. It was practically a growl.
“All we want is you, sweet girl,” she cooed. “Come with me, and I’ll
release your loves.”
“Who the fuck are you?”
I realized that the correct question should’ve been what the fuck are you,
but I was too pissed off to care.
Finally, she took a step closer. The light caught first on her pretty face -
plump lips, white eyelashes, and a button nose. Something hissed as the rest
of her came into view. No, not something.
Her hair.
Her hair hissed.
Dozens of snakes slithered around her head. Green, a ruby red, and a few
still were as yellow as aspen leaves. Each snake hissed, beady eyes fixated on
me.
The girl laughed, a surprisingly jovial sound.
“My sweet child,” she said. The snakes rose from her head, their hissing a
cacophony of noise. She smiled with feigned sweetness. “Have you ever
heard of a Gorgon?”
EIGHTEEN
Z
A Gorgon.My mind rapidly attempted to sift through all the information I
had acquired over the years.
A mythical creature, descended from a demon. Snakes for hair. Female,
always. Extinct.
And the ability to turn people into stone.
I squeezed my eyes shut, heart racing. Her laughter caught in the wind, a
twinkling of bells.
“So you heard,” she said, and there was no mistaking the cockiness in her
tone.
“Your reputation precedes you,” I drawled sarcastically. I held the knife
handle stiffly as Ryland’s training flickered through my mind. He had
prepared me for this, I realized. Prepared me to fight an enemy I wasn’t able
to see.
The hissing of snakes grew louder as she grew closer.
“I don’t want to have to hurt you, Z, but I will.”
“Did Aaliyah send you?” I asked, teeth gritted. There was a change in the
air, and suddenly I felt warm breath on my face.
“Of course,” she replied immediately. Casually. Relaxed.
“Why?”
The question haunted me. Why? What did that psycho bitch want from
me? Why me? I was afraid I would never get the answers to those questions.
The Gorgon giggled, a surprisingly young and innocent sound. Still, I
didn’t believe it for one second. This woman was not innocent nor young.
She was a killer - she may have already killed my mates.
It was that thought that made my hands move. Blindly, they reached out
and yanked at her slithering mound of hair. She yelped even as something
sharp pierced my skin.
Cursing, I released her hair - her snakes? - only to immediately punch her
in the face. The sickening crunch of bone greeted my throbbing knuckles, and
I resisted the urge to smile like an idiot.
“You bitch,” she hissed, the noise more snakelike than human.
“You know my name,” I began, listening intently to the wisp of fabric.
The snakes had quieted down once more, but the Gorgon could do little to
conceal her footsteps against the dirt. The crinkle of leaves. The scattering of
rocks. “I think it’s only fair that I know yours.”
I spun around and held up an arm a mere second before something
slammed into me. I staggered, but my arm shielded my face from the worst of
blows.
“Haven,” she answered. Her breathing was heavy as if this fight was
taking a lot out of her.
I kicked my feet out, listening to her body clunk as it hit the ground. She
muttered a curse.
“Pretty name,” I mused. My foot intended to slam on her head, but she
moved at the last secon
d.
“Better than Z,” she retorted from behind me.
Something hard slammed into my back. The pain was immediate and
intense. Pinpricks of fire raced down my spine, tears blurring in my eyes.
“Nah. I’m rather fond of it,” I countered, remaining crouched on the
ground. Her warm hand tangled in my hair, pulling my head back, but at the
last second, I swept my foot out behind me and brought her down as well.
She snarled. Honestly, it was a hideous sound. Grown ass women
shouldn’t snarl. It just wasn’t attractive.
“What does she want with me?” I asked darkly, twisting my body. My
hands once more tangled in her snake hair. Ignoring the stab of pain from the
snakes’ fangs, I brought her head up only to push it back into the dirt.
“Answer me!”
“Fuck off!” Haven hissed.
My head throbbed suddenly. So suddenly that I very nearly released the
bitch.
Dizziness and nausea swarmed within me. A strange pain erupted on my
arm. It felt like thousands of needles numbing my skin. That was the only
description I could think of. It raced from the tips of my fingers, up my arm,
and then down my body.
Suddenly, I couldn’t move.
I kept my eyes squeezed shut as I was kicked unceremoniously onto the
rocky ground. It was the strangest sensation to not know if you had a body.
To have your sense of sight ripped away. To not feel your toes wiggle or your
fingers grasp at dirt. Only my brain existed in this strange world. I was
disembodied, a shell of myself.
“Making eye-contact may turn you into stone, but my snakes?” Her lips
touched my ear, and I wanted to shiver in revulsion. “They paralyze you.”
Well.
Fuck.
I finally dared to open up my eyes.
Haven stood over me, smirking, and as I watched in rapt horror, she bent
down to pick me up. I may have been skinny, but I wasn’t a short damsel.
Still, the Gorgon didn’t struggle as she dumped me over her shoulder.
“You know, I might’ve liked you, Z. We could’ve even been friends.”
Somehow, my lips were able to move. They were the only thing besides
my eyelids that were able to.
“Please don’t.”
Haven released a heavy sigh.
“I wish I could,” she said softly. I almost wanted to believe the sincerity
in her voice, but I wasn’t stupid. “Aaliyah gave me life in exchange for this
one task.”
“Me?”
“I’m not ready to die,” she said earnestly. “Between you and me, I choose
me.”
Hatred did not begin to encapsulate what I felt for this motherfucker.
I opened my mouth to retort something snarky, probably along the lines
of, “But I choose me, cocksucking bitch” when I realized I couldn’t get my
lips open. Panic settled heavily in my chest with the strength of a tsunami,
drowning me.
Would my breathing go next? I wondered if it would be horribly painful
to choke from lack of air.
Stomach sinking, all I could do was focus on the twinkling stars blinking
in and out of existence. I would be like those stars if Haven had her way with
me.
“It’s not like you’re going to live much longer anyway,” she continued. “I
know denial when I see it. I can sense death-” Her voice broke off abruptly.
In a span of seconds, I was dropped to the ground, but no pain registered.
I moved my eyes rapidly to the side just in time to see Haven’s blank gaze
and pretty head.
Disconnected from the rest of her body.
The snakes were dead as well, cascading around her in a kaleidoscope of
color. A figure dressed in black stood over her, a katana sword held in his or
her hand.
Terror blinded me, momentarily overcoming the paralyzation from the
snake bites. This motherfucker had just killed a Gorgon with an ease that left
me baffled. He - or she - knew exactly how to stop the bitch.
I was jostled as I was grabbed once more, head nestled beneath
someone’s chin. I couldn’t see who was holding me, and my body thrummed
with pent-up tension.
As we walked, we passed the statues of my mates. I was relieved to see
the stone chipping away to reveal skin and vibrant colored hair. I nearly
sobbed with relief. They were alive.
The unknown figure gently set me down on a stone bench, and I felt
fingers brush my hair out of my face - the only part of my body that wasn’t
completely numb. There was so much tenderness in that one gesture that my
heart caught in my throat. I willed my head to move, to look at the figure, but
it remained stubbornly frozen.
There was a ruffle of fabric, and I knew my savior was gone.
Just like the stars.
NINETEEN
Z
The next couple hours were chaos.
If you could call it that. Chaos didn't even begin to encapsulate
all that occurred. Someone, probably a noble girl and her lover, were
dallying in the garden when they came across my prone body. My prone,
unmoving body.
Well...
Screaming at the top of their lungs that they found Zara dead did not bode
well for them.
In a span of seconds, I felt tantalizingly light fingers brush my hair, the
palm of his hand curving around my cheek. He let out a broken sob,
burrowing his face into my neck. I wanted to tell Ryland that I was still alive,
still breathing, but the words got stuck in my throat. I couldn't even blink
anymore, my eyes trapped in a perpetual state of awkward staring.
"Give her to me!" a different voice growled. I recognized it, but I had
never heard it like that before. Raspy, almost. Distorted with a guttural growl.
Ryland hissed something indecipherable before I felt my body being lifted.
Felt. The irony of that term.
Bash stroked my hair rapidly, repeatedly, his hand trembling with each
desperate movement. I wanted to yell at him to stop. My body, if I had been
in control of it, would've tensed.
It was all fine and dandy to act like you actually gave a shit about
somebody when you thought they were dead. Despite the whispers of love, I
couldn't stop thinking about his hand in Cassie's as she pulled him away.
What had they done? Where had they gone? I knew I wouldn't like the
answers to either of those questions.
Still, I allowed myself to be held by him. To pretend that he actually
cared about me, maybe even loved me. But with any fairytale, there was
always a catch. The clock striking twelve and turning the prince into a frog -
or however that story went.
"She's still alive!" The new voice sent tremors of relief down my spine.
Killian.
My body hummed as he approached, and soon his face was leaning over
mine. Red garnet strands of hair interwoven with dark brown brushed my
face. There were still tiny pieces of stone clinging to his body and hair, but he
was whole. He was alive.
Cheeks flushed, he smiled down at me.
"You hear me, sweetheart?" he questioned. I didn't know what he
expected me to do. Blink twice for yes?
Oh wait. I couldn't fucking blink.
I couldn't see him, but I could feel his presence seeping into my bones.
"What can we do?" Bash asked desperately. His hand continued to trace
my features - across my nose, the seams that connected my lips, my
eyebrows. I imagined it would feel very good, comforting and relaxing, if I
could actually feel his touch.
"Just wait," Lupe said. "When I was researching Fae and Revenants, I
came across a whole list of extinct supernatural creatures. I remember reading
about Gorgons. Their venom paralyzes a human, but only for twenty-four
hours."
Twenty-four hours! He better have been fucking joking.
"When the she-bitch died, it released us from our stone prisons," he
added.
“Back up a second. A Gorgon?” Bash asked in alarm.
“She was sent by Aaliyah apparently.” Dair. “I couldn’t hear the entire
conversation, but I got the gist of it. Aaliyah gave the Gorgon life in
exchange for Z.”
“Fuck!” That exclamation came from Ryland.
Fuck was a vast understatement.
My vision was jostled as I was carried through a door - a separate
entrance than the one that led back into the ballroom. All I was aware of was
the ceiling. A rather pretty ceiling, if you asked me. Golden trim, intricately
carved designs, and wooden panes.
A door opened and closed, and I was dropped onto something. A bed,
more than likely. My bed.
I could hear my men settling around me. A few curled up by my feet, one
went above my head, and one went on either side. With the way my head was
facing, I could clearly see Bash crawling into bed directly beside me. His face
was worshipful as he stared at me, eyes grazing my features with a reverence
that made my throat close. He curled up against me, hand wrapping around
my waist.
With a quick glance in both directions, as if assuring no one was
watching, Bash leaned forward and kissed the tip of my nose. The chaste
gesture made my heart stop before restarting with a vengeance.
And so I began the long, excruciating wait.
MY TOES WIGGLED FIRST.
Then my hands.
Pinpricks raced up and down my arms, thousands of needles grazing the
skin. The feeling wasn't entirely unpleasant. It reminded me that I could feel.
That I was alive.
And then my head could move. My lips opening and closing, my eyes