Reckless

by Selene Charles

  And why couldn’t she seem to stop shaking? Why was it so hard to catch a breath?

  “Ohmygod. Oh my Go—”

  “She’s in shock.” Cain wrapped one arm beneath her legs and braced the other against her back, then stood. His words were cold and authoritative as he snapped at the three. “Make sure that thing is secure. I’m taking Flint to her trailer.”

  She clutched at his chest, feeling like a rag doll as he turned on his booted heel and made for the safety of her trailer.

  Once inside, he placed her gently on her feet, then closed and locked the door.

  “Get dressed, Flint,” he said in a voice still thick with power.

  Frowning, she stared down at herself. Somehow the clothes she’d been wearing looked as though they’d come face-to-face with a werewolf’s claws and the werewolf had won.

  “I don’t know—” She lifted the hem of her shirt, staring at it stupidly. Her bra was showing, and her jeans were shredded, barely hanging on her slip hips. “Almost naked. Who did this to me?”

  Was she in shock?

  Was this what shock felt like?

  Numb?

  Empty?

  Cold?

  Placing his hands gently on her shoulders, he turned her around. “Clothes, Flint.”

  His voice was so gentle. And his body was no longer brimming with power. Cain was looking at her tenderly. Like she was fragile. Like he was worried.

  He should be worried. She’d almost killed someone. And the worst of it was, she’d really, really wanted to.

  “Princess.” His fingers dug in just a little bit harder, enough to make her glance at his blue, blue eyes. “You’re okay now. You’re okay. I promise. Go change into your nightgown. You need sleep. I’m here. I’m not leaving.”

  Moving in a dreamlike state, she snatched a shirt out of her drawer, turned around, and quickly shucked the one she’d been wearing off—it’d been one of Cain’s. She missed its warmth immediately.

  There was a quick inhalation of breath behind her. “You could have warned me you were going to change.”

  His voice sounded slightly muffled, and when she peeked over her shoulder, it was to spot him with his back turned toward her.

  She yanked on a shirt, kicked off the jeans she’d never wear again, then grabbed a soft, slightly ragged pair of sweatpants and pulled them on. Oddly enough, doing something as mundane as dressing herself made her feel slightly more focused.

  She was a monster. She’d known that already. She’d known it for days. Because of her, Dad had been forced out and the carnival had disbanded. She could dream walk. She could call a sword to her from thin air; she could punch with the force of an elephant. She wasn’t human. And she knew she hadn’t been for quite a while now.

  So why was she freaking out about this?

  “I’m sorry.” She rubbed her brow as an ache began to center in her skull. “I’m not exactly thinking right. And why did you lock my door?”

  When he turned, it was with some relief that she realized he’d gone back to just being regular Cain again.

  “Because I wanted to make sure you were okay. I didn’t want anyone else in here until you were ready for it.”

  Plopping down onto the corner of the bed, she closed her eyes, dropping her hands between her thighs. “Why aren’t you freaking out about me?”

  Tracing a thumb gently across her cheek, he sighed. “Flint, for the past few years of my life, I’ve had to hide who I am from almost everybody. I know what it feels like to lose yourself to what you are. And the mere fact that the drone is still alive says something about who you are.”

  “Who I am.” She gave a choked sound. “I wanted to kill it. There was a voice in my head, and it just kept telling me to end it. To make it scream.” She snorted. “And all because it wasn’t worthy. Not because it was evil. Or because it smelled like death. But because it wasn’t worthy to be in my presence. What kind of person am I?”

  She hated the stupid tears forming in her eyes again and blew an irritated breath upward to dry them.

  Cain didn’t answer at first, simply pulled her in for a quick hug. His hands were so soft, so gentle on her back, that she felt herself going limp in his arms, lost to his touch, the voices in her head receding like a distant, foggy memory.

  “A good one. But you are different. Just like me. And what we are”—his thumbs rubbed her cheekbones—“it’s not fun or easy to deal with some days. But it’s who we are, princess.”

  “You don’t hate me?” Her words echoed with the drowning weight of fear.

  “Did you hate me when you learned who I was?” he asked her right back.

  She remembered the day she’d learned about him. When she’d first met him and begun to put the pieces of the puzzle together, her brain had thought vampire, which had terrified her—she wasn’t gonna lie—and then she’d discovered it was actually so much worse than vampire. That he was actually part demon. Demon. As in big and bad and red and Hell and fiery pits, sulfur, and all that jazz.

  But then she’d looked into his eyes, and she hadn’t seen a villain with cloven hooves and a pitchfork tail, but a sexy, good-hearted—though he never wanted to admit it—guy with a couple of anger-issue problems he was constantly working hard to overcome.

  His eyes were broody and had a hint of red at their center, letting her know he was still emotionally volatile.

  “Never,” she said softly and slipped her fingers through his, holding them to her cheeks still. “So what happened to me, the voices in my head and all that, that wasn’t just a psycho fae thing?”

  “Do you know what happens to me when I rage?”

  His softly spoken words resonated with pain. Needing to feel him as close to her as possible, she straddled his legs. He shifted, giving her the room she needed, and they fit like they’d been made for each other. Taking a deep breath, she pressed her cheek to his chest and wrapped her arms around his waist as he wrapped his around hers.

  “I see so much death, Flint. My head is filled with so much violence. Unspeakable, horrible things. Things that I’m ashamed to admit. Things that—”

  Kissing him, she stole the rest of his words. She didn’t need him to breathe them to life. She knew what he meant; she’d felt them too.

  Cain held still for her, and when she finally ended the kiss, he sighed softly. “I love you.”

  The words filled her heart, filled the ache, the pain and the shame she’d felt from just moments ago, sealing up the broken fissures and making her feel whole again.

  “I don’t want to hurt people, Cain, and I’m afraid that if I ever do this again I wi—”

  “You won’t.”

  “But you don’t know that for sure.”

  “Yeah.” His look never wavered. “I do. Because the first time it happened to me, I wasn’t able to pull away. Not the first, not the second, not even the third. There’s steel in you, a core of goodness. I know because I witness it every day. Don’t let being fae define who you are.”

  Her nostrils flared, and it was hard not to shiver under the intense scrutiny of his gaze.

  “And who am I?”

  “My Flint.” Cain planted a kiss on the palm of her hand, and the immediate effect of it had her forgetting all her words.

  Adam had arrived soon after, and everyone agreed with Cain that there was nothing else they could learn from the drone.

  But after what’d happened tonight, none of them felt particularly interested in killing it either.

  All Flint knew was she was tired, bone weary really, and feeling more useless than ever because apart from learning just how dangerous she now could be, they’d still learned nothing of Abel.

  In the morning they’d head out. Not even Adam was quite sure where to go. There were no haunts that Layla was known for, no places she’d ever spoken of to him, no threads left to follow.

  After a quick phone call to Grace, Flint’d suggested getting in touch with some of her grandmother’s contacts at the Or
der and seeing if maybe there’d been any sightings of the hive anywhere, and then just trying from that point onward.

  The mood had been quiet as everyone had scattered to separate trailers after that. Except for Cain, he’d stayed back with her again.

  She was lying once more in his arms, almost to that deep-sleep stage, lulled into the gentle rhythm of his breathing and the scent of his body enveloping her like a hug, when a thought pierced her brain and made her sit up.

  “Graham,” she snapped, turning to Cain.

  He sat up instantly, the short ends of his black hair poking up at odd angles as he shook his head. “Did you have a dream?”

  “No. But I can feel him.”

  She clamped a hand to her chest.

  “What do you mean you can feel him?”

  Nibbling on the corner of her lip, she kicked off her sheets, suddenly sweaty and wanting to claw at her skin, which now felt overheated.

  Getting up, she began to pace as she became more and more aware of the heavy presence inside her. Not a tangible thing, more like a thought or a memory not her own running on a constant loop.

  Graham in a cell. Calling out to her.

  Faeling, come.

  She shook her head and then grabbed the call as it increased in frequency, making even her bones tingle.

  “Flint, hey.” Cain was in front of her then with a worried look gleaming in his suddenly red eyes.

  He was shirtless, dressed only in jeans with the top button undone, but even the sight of his delicious eight-pack wasn’t enough to rein in the rising awareness of the other fae calling out to her.

  “I have to go.” She turned and headed for the door.

  But Cain was by her side in a second, pulling her around. “Go where? You’re not going anywhere, not like this.”

  She knew where she had to go. And she had to go there right now.

  Framing his face with her hand, she spoke gently but with authority. “I have to go into the ground. And I have to go right now.”

  Chapter 17

  Flint

  The earth had taken her back inside itself. It had been so easy this time too. Each time she went under, Flint grew more and more attuned to the very soul of nature itself.

  She’d merely had to call to her vines. Ropes of them had crawled like worms through the dirt, up from the ground, then wrapped themselves around her body, dragging her down deep. She hadn’t fought it this time, and the exhilaration of life had pressed against her like a hug as she sank in deep. Cocooned inside the earth’s welcome warmth, Flint ghosted to Graham.

  The shifting colors of that bright tunnel dropped her off quickly.

  And this time when she stepped out of it, she wasn’t outside Graham’s cage, but inside it. He looked better than he had when she’d seen him last.

  He was still covered in bruises, his skin yellowed in spots. But there was no blood. And he wasn’t lying on the floor but sitting cross-legged on a Spartan metal bed. She shivered at the sight of falling leaves staring back at her.

  “You came,” he said.

  Flint started, surprised to hear him talk. His voice wasn’t deep, but there was an enchanting, almost hypnotic quality to it, something otherworldly about it that called to her on a visceral level.

  “You can hear me?”

  He blinked, and the leaves in his forest-green eyes were now the color of a sunset. “I’ve always heard you.”

  “Why did you never talk to me then?”

  He rubbed his shoulder. She noticed that the bone in his left shoulder blade was set at an odd angle, poking up higher than the right. At some point it’d been broken and left to heal on its own.

  Getting a good look at him now, she noticed how small he was. Slight. Much smaller than the other fae in her vision was. His features were soft, almost feminine, except for the hard slash of his skinny mouth. But the androgynous thing worked for him. There was an essence to him, something alluring that made her want to keep looking, keep studying him.

  Graham cocked his head. “What was I supposed to say? I sensed you were a fae, but you can’t help me, so why talk?”

  Flint had to force her eyes off him to get a look at the room, to try to get a fix on him, try to find some hint or clue as to where he was.

  Stretching out her senses, she tried to listen for others, knowing they were out there. She’d seen the guards milling through the halls, seen the cells full of others. And yet tonight there was a strange, eerie silence to the place that made the back of her neck prickle.

  She rubbed at it.

  “But you called me to you. Why?” she finally asked him.

  “Because.” He swallowed, and a muscle in his jaw twitched. “There’s a plan. Escape.”

  She gasped. “Who’s escaping? You?”

  “Me. Others. I don’t know who. But the cells are going to be opened soon.”

  Flint was terrified to hope, to believe. Her tongue felt numb as she mumbled, “Do you know a guy named Abel?”

  The leaves in his eyes turned a soft shade of gold. “The berserker?”

  It was like being punched in the gut. She trembled from head to toe. “You have to save him.”

  He shook his head. “No.”

  “No? Yes!” She took a step forward. “You don’t understand. He’s important, he’s—”

  As though she hadn’t said anything, he switched subjects. “Do you know who I am? Who you are?”

  Blinking, the words died on her tongue. Did he know who she was? “I have visions sometimes.”

  He nodded. “A man with red hair, lightning at his back and the sword of truth in his hand?”

  She gasped. “Who do you... What do you—”

  “We are rare, you and I. I’m a halfling Green Man.”

  She was almost afraid to ask, to have her hopes dashed, but if he knew, if there was even a chance that he could help her learn who she was, figure out what she could do... “And me? What am I?”

  Standing, he walked to her, stopping so close that if it hadn’t been a vision, they’d have shared breath. The leaves in his eyes sparkled with threads of burgundy. He was shorter than her by at least an inch, but she felt dwarfed by his presence.

  “Your skin gleams like opal. You hair breathes with sparks of flame. Poison can be milked from your claws...”

  Flint stared at her hands; she hadn’t known that.

  “Can you not guess?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know anything about the fae.”

  Reaching a hand toward her, she thought for a second that he meant to touch her. But just before contact was made, he curled his fingers into a fist. “To live so long without knowing who you really are. Your grandsire is from the royal house of dragons.”

  Her heart thumped. “I’m a dragon?”

  Of all the things she’d learned about herself, this one had probably been the least terrifying and yet most shocking.

  His thin lips curled into a loose grin. “Dragon, no. You are so called because of the affinity you bear to the creatures. And your grandsire can be none other than a royal.”

  She frowned. “How can you be sure?”

  “Because your features are strongly human and yet your power is immense. What is your name?”

  “Flint,” she whispered, not sure why she’d just given it to him as she had, but something inside her trusted him. Trusted him implicitly. She didn’t know him, and yet she did, like they shared an ancient bond that’d been tethered between them long before birth, before she’d been a thought even. “Why do I—”

  “Trust me?” he asked, and she wasn’t shocked that he could read her as he had. Because the other fae had done it to her too. Suddenly Katy’s words came barreling back to her. The call she’d feel, the need to go be with the fae. Katy couldn’t have known how true her words would be, because if Graham asked her to leave now, she’d seriously consider it.

  The thought was so shocking that it snapped her back, made her take a step away from him. She could neve
r leave.

  Cain, Abel, Rhi, Janet, her father. Her life. It was here. Not there. Not with a race of people she knew nothing about.

  “What are you doing to me?” she hissed, taking another step back.

  The warmth she’d felt when looking into his eyes just moments ago vanished, and his face contorted, looking even more haughtily beautiful than before.

  “You want your friend freed? Fine. I will help him.”

  Flint knew without asking there’d be a price to be paid. But how could she say no?

  “And in return?” she asked softly.

  His grin turned suddenly menacing, breaking her out in a wash of icy fear.

  “You.”

  “You don’t know me. Why do you want me?”

  “I don’t want you. I want what you are.”

  She was almost afraid to ask. Taking another involuntary step back, she shuddered when his movements mimicked hers precisely. “And that is?”

  “My key back to fairy.”

  There wasn’t even a moment to wonder what that meant, because the world had suddenly exploded in chaos.

  Red flashed like strobe lights in a haunted house. Graham smiled.

  “You will save him.” The urgency of her plea spilled off her tongue with hope, with fear.

  “You know the price.”

  There was no chance to talk with Cain. No chance to think things through. “Yes.”

  And when she said it, her heart bled. She didn’t want to leave with Graham. She didn’t know Graham. But she had to get Abel out of there. She had to save him. Even if it meant sacrificing herself.

  And then the cell door was flung open as if by unseen hands, and Graham moved with the stealth of a ninja. Bodies were everywhere. Anarchy ruled. So many people, most of the injured flying down the halls, pushing and shoving to get away from whatever this hell was.

  And for a second she wondered how Graham could find Abel in this mess. Or if—she swallowed—it’d all been an elaborate hoax to get at her and Abel wasn’t even here. In all the times she’d come to Graham, she’d never once seen her friend.

  Then he turned the corner and entered a cell, and she cried out in shock. In awe. In wonder. Abel was there, just fifteen steps ahead. Her heart sped, and she jerked as if slapped, wanting to rise out of the dirt, wanting to go and find Cain, to tell him what she’d seen, but if she left the nest she’d lose the connection, and so she stayed and she watched.