“He ran and left you to take the fall,” Dain said.
I knew it. Dain totally suspected me of collusion with the Light Fae against him.
“I don’t have any reason to run,” I said, meeting Dain’s golden eyes.
Long, tense moments passed as Dain’s heavy magic squeezed my body for answers but I had nothing more to say to him. He finally looked back up at my eyes, seeming surprised.
“No, none of us can run any longer,” Dain said and it had a note of resigned finality to it.
I swallowed hard. “Why?” I asked. “Why me? What made all of you decide on me?”
Dain had the answers in his eyes but I couldn’t read them. I fisted my hand and smacked it against his chest while he held his silence, an ineffectual hit that barely got a grunt as my fist opened and I slid my palm down his chest in hopeless defeat.
They would never tell me anything important. Even Orin had to be tricked and his information had only left me with more questions and a quicksilver decision I was now second-guessing. I still had to run, but I was going to have to disable Dain first. Eloden had inadvertently told me how to do it.
“What do you want?” I whispered, looking into that golden gaze and wishing Dain would say something to dissuade me.
I needed hope.
Dain opened his mouth and closed it, wincing. I was so shocked, I dropped my gaze to my clawed hand to see if I had accidentally hurt his wounded chest further. The rock could bleed and I didn’t know my own strength yet in this form.
“Do you know how to glamour yourself?” Dain asked as I pulled my hand back. “You’re going to attract too much attention.”
There wasn’t going to be a last minute reprieve. Did Dain find my Dark Elf form too monstrous? How ironic given he was supposed to be a demon himself, the darkest of the Fae. Or was there another reason he wanted me to change?
My human form was even more helpless.
“Yes,” I simply answered. As if I could reply otherwise. He had seen me attempting to change my form in the field with Eloden.
“Do it,” Dain ordered.
This wasn’t an order I could ignore. Fighting him would probably only lead to one of them replacing my glamour for me and it would embitter Dain further towards me. It was better to surrender this small thing and wait for my chance to attack when I had the advantage.
I closed my eyes and felt for my snowflake. Dain closed the distance to press his lips down on mine. I gasped. They were so warm and soft. For one perfect moment, I felt heat rise all around me, sink into my chest and warm even my heart. It was the power of hope and dreams and the forgiveness of love. Dain seemed to breathe me in, then pulled back to whisper against my mouth.
I barely heard his single, fate-altering word.
“Checkmate.”
Pain stabbed my chest as if Dain had knifed me with his pithy declaration. I didn’t really understand what he meant other than he had won. Checkmate reminded me of what Orin had warned: Dain was a Dark Fae royal and I was the pawn that had betrayed him. Forgiveness tasted like dust in my mouth, dried with fear. Dain was stating his intent. I would pay the price for choosing to aid Kheelan.
I opened my eyes to see Dain’s gaze had changed, a yellow so sharp that there was no mistaking his wicked thoughts. My foolish heart trusted Dain even though I had been told he would be angry and murderous. It was a mistake, a wrong move that could end the game for me. Kheelan should have been the focus of that anger but I had purposely blocked Dain from acting on his intended target with my actions, putting myself at risk now.
Dain hadn’t lied to me.We both had been misled by the Light Fae all the same.
I breathed in a shaky, deep inhale and slowly let it all out, hurt, helplessness and fear.
Fear won out. Dain was declaring victory and that could only mean he had judged against me. There wasn’t just myself to pay the price of losing to him. I had my brothers and the responsibility tasted bitter with Dain’s soured forgiveness already in my mouth.
“Why so quiet? Do you yield to me? I’ve seen you favour Orin when you resisted all of us. Take one and you accept all,” Dain said.
He was talking about sexual enslavement. None of them had exactly forced me, although they were forceful. My refusals were tested and then they were acknowledged. That was before I had been kidnapped and threatened by a mad Fae king. Was Dain declaring me their prisoner now that I had betrayed him?
I tried to pull away, form a question without letting a tremble into my voice. I needed to escape.
“Too late to run,” Dain whispered, his grip tightened.
—Eve, you don’t understand. We can’t speak of the Geis or—
Blinding pain squeezed my head. The pain was barely noticeable when my heart was being ripped out of my chest with fear and indecision. At least Orin’s unneeded opinion was cut off with the pain, his telepathy failing to break through the white-hot light piercing behind my eyes.
Dain released my wrist. I almost dropped to my knees without him supporting me but I had my brothers to rescue and this wasn’t the time to give up. Dain couldn’t be trusted. None of my Marks were trustworthy and I had to break from them if I wanted to remain free. We were all in terrible danger and I was at last frighteningly aware.
I’ve never been what others consider brave. I dropped out of school, skipped my counselling sessions, and I stopped running, except to get away from my mother’s death sentence that could have so easily been mine. Cowardice was a stain I bore so no one else had to be brave for me. It had strengthened me more than anyone would realize, given me the grit to bear every loss and wound I received for not fighting.
It gave me power for I had nothing left to lose.
I had everything to win.
“Checkmate? You think this is a game?” I asked so quietly that Dain should have heeded the warning in my voice alone. The tensing of my shoulders as I looked at my arrows and bow at the corner of my vision was his last chance.
Kheelan knew how I responded to fear. Too bad Dain hadn’t paid attention.
“We’re all players, Eve. You shouldn’t have played a game with me if you weren’t prepared for the end result.”
I would not be played by fate or the Fae any longer.
My body already missed the heat from Dain’s touch, immediately pebbling my bare nipples. I hated my response, the treacherous flutter in my chest as I contemplated Dain’s last words. He had sounded rather defeated for someone that had announced his win, almost as if he regretted having fooled me.
It wasn’t enough. I needed to take back my life. There was reason for me to live. My heart may have been lost but not my head.
“Perhaps, you misunderstood the meaning of checkmate?” I mocked Dain, bending down towards my clothes and picking up my bow and quiver instead, slinging the latter over my shoulder. It slid on like another limb and I vowed to learn to sleep with it instead of ever being helpless again.
—Those are iron, Sparkles.—
I ignored Orin’s telepathy, unhappy he was back in my head. He had better not betray me to Dain or the next arrow would be for him.
“Let me explain checkmate,” I said, drawing my first arrow and pointing it with a tremble right where Dain’s heart would be if he wasn’t such a heartless bastard. “The King is the one put under inescapable check, your Royal Darkness.”
Dain’s eyes flashed with magic I felt even in my human form at the open acknowledgement of his princely status. He never looked at the arrow I was threatening to put through his chest, his eagle gaze trying to pin me in place like the little mouse he called me.
Nothing protected me from Dain, but the reverse was also true.
I loosed the arrow to Orin’s shocked exclamation. He had to know it was coming, but maybe he didn’t believe my thoughts, either. It thudded with an awful, muffled sound of flesh swallowing a projectile.
“You should not have picked me for your games,” I said.
“Hunt,” Dain corrected me, standi
ng tall and straight with my arrow protruding from his chest.
Pain squeezed my head again and I thought at first he was using magic to defeat me but it was too fleeting to matter. All of this pain would soon be a memory. Escape was all I could think of right now.
Dain never dropped his gaze from mine as I drew another arrow, breaking away my own focus to aim, eyes snapping back up to his as I released it. I needn’t look to know it had hit, already drawing my next.
He couldn’t die but I had to bring him down to have any hope of escaping. He was practically immortal, power drenching me like a thick miasma that made it hard to breathe. I choked back a sob. This was the right thing to do, the only thing I could do to save my soul. My mother had said it to me so recently. Never stop running.
I didn’t think anymore, I followed my instincts.
“You wanted me to have Marks,” I told Dain, releasing the arrow. I drew another and took a step forward as he lurched back from the last hit. I was so close to him now that aim was irrelevant. “Five Marks and a Claim to bind them all,” I reminded him, and I sent the fourth arrow to follow its predecessors. “You thought to use me and to play with my heart?” I whispered.
I nocked the last arrow in my quiver and knew what I wanted to tell Dain. I looked him straight in the eyes to deliver it.
“You’re the one that lost. I’ve overcome your misconstrued truths and I will take back the heritage hidden from me to save my mother.”
I released the last arrow with strength borrowed from my Fae form as I seamlessly transitioned, mouthing my rhyme as I pulled back on the bowstring with my longer draw length. The thunk sent Dain tumbling off the boulder and into the lake to join Orin.
I whispered my goodbye as he fell.
“Your power over me is no more.”
The End.
Acknowledgements:
THANKS TO EVERYONE that has helped me edit this current version. Cover designed by Trillian Fire Designs. http://trillianfiredesign.com/ Custom, hand-made jewellery, crafts, and graphic design including ebook covers. Email: [email protected]
Also By Mercedes Jade:
FAERIE SERIES
No Faerie Tale Love
Falling Into Faerie After
Faerie Cursed, Nevermore
MAEREN SERIES
Every Witch Demon but Mine
No Witch Way Out
Witch Darkness Follows – coming soon
VICTORY LAP SERIES
Impetuous
Duplicity - coming soon
STANDALONES
The Bully Switch Novella
About the Author
I’ve drank cafe sua dau on a Saigon street. The binary system is a language and I remember the first thing I ever cooked in a microwave (hotdog) and when I was the only girl in a classroom full of boys and noisy computers and it was no typing class. I heal people and soothe souls for those that can’t be cured. I’m a fangirl. I believe in fairness and rescuing kitties from trees. You can depend on me. Book recommendations are the best gift next to a smile. Humour is a must. You live a lot to learn. Be kind.
Read more at Mercedes Jade’s site.
No Faerie Tale Love (Faerie Series Book 1) Page 37