Whatever weirdness it should elicit, Faith didn’t feel it. She only felt more turned on.
“You taste delicious,” Cam whispered.
She wasn’t sure if she should thank him or not.
Cam ran his hands along her body, and she more than willingly spread her legs. She was doing a lot of that tonight, wasn’t she? Faith smiled in the darkness. Why hadn’t she ever let go before? It felt so good.
“It’s been a long time since…” Cam stopped himself, shaking his head slightly and changing courses, “Apologies if I am not…good at this.”
She brought a hand to his face, touching his stubble-free jaw. So smooth, so soft. She then moved her fingers to his mouth, which hung open slightly, revealing his sharper than normal teeth, a trait of all Ulen. They were all somewhat pointed, though the canines were the sharpest. It was an oddly attractive trait. Maybe she never grew out of her Twilight phase.
“Cam,” she whispered to him, “I just want you.” It was the truth.
That was all the assurance he needed. He rid himself of his clothes, holding her to him for a minute, breathing her in before he positioned himself between her legs. He entered her, filling her up entirely. She let out a soft moan, more turned on due to the fact it was Cam inside her, and they’d just shared their first kiss mere moments ago. She was his just as he was hers. That was the arrangement, wasn’t it?
As he began to gyrate his hips, she murmured, “Yes, Cam, just like that.” Faith clung to his chest, wishing he wasn’t so damned tall. If he were a bit shorter, then she could kiss him, his neck, while they made love.
Made love. She had to stop herself from giggling. She was doing a lot of that tonight, wasn’t she? But, seriously. Made love? Who was she, her grandma?
Her words made him increase his speed. His rhythm steady, he worked her for far longer than any of the others. Maybe it was because he was Ulen, or maybe it was something else. Faith didn’t care. It felt so good to have him with her, like this, to be one with him. It could last all night and she wouldn’t complain.
Maybe it was the maleek shit she drank, but Faith just wanted to be fucked.
Chapter Twenty-Two
After a long session with Cam, Faith actually fell asleep. Well, more like dozed off. She wasn’t asleep for long—and she didn’t even remember falling asleep to begin with—but when she felt herself coming to, her eyes flew open. It was still dark out, but traces of a sunrise graced the sky, lighting its black, star-less color with reds and purples.
Her head hurt a bit, and her vision was a tad on the blurry side. She remembered everything that happened the night before with clarity, and she was self-aware enough to be a little embarrassed. Things…escalated quickly, didn’t they? And, to be honest, Faith still felt a bit on the horny side. And it said nothing about the soreness she felt radiating between her legs.
What the hell was in the stuff Nilda gave them?
Sitting, she felt around the grass for Cam, but the blasted Ulen was gone. She was alone in a field—she glanced to the camp of tents—half a mile out. And she was butt-naked. Which was great, really. She prayed most of the Malus would still be sleeping since the sun hadn’t yet risen in the sky.
She got to her feet, swaying like she was drunk. Odd. Faith started for the camp, but her legs stopped almost immediately when she recalled what she saw deeper in the plains: a temple. Was it still there? Her anger over Cam’s disappearance vanished as she spun in the opposite direction.
It remained.
The temple stood, still very much glowing, like a gothic-style fantasy church. So she hadn’t made it up.
Faith wondered first if she should get the guys, and clothes, but she hesitated because clearly the temple wasn’t there before. It wasn’t there before. How did a temple pop into existence like that? No, she couldn’t waste time going to get clothes or the guys. What if she came back and it was gone? She wasn’t going to drink maleek again anytime soon. The side effects of it were…both insanely pleasant and unpleasant, if the headache raging in her brain had anything to say about it.
So she did the only thing she could think of: she headed straight for the temple and ignored the wind’s gentle reminder that she was naked.
It took her fifteen minutes to reach its front doors. From a distance, it looked like stone, but up close, Faith recognized it for what it was. Blackstone, the hardest stone of the second, more a metal than a rock. Bulletproof, stronger than diamonds. It was why smugglers loved bringing it to Earth and selling it on the black market; it had a lot of uses.
But it wasn’t only blackstone.
She squinted, drawing a hand across the temple’s outer wall. The blackstone had tiny, random veins of…purple.
Was it aether? No wonder it appeared out of nothing. When aether was concerned, random-ass things tended to happen. That, or people died. Fortunately smugglers weren’t concerned with the substance, at least none who were in the I.D.’s radar.
In its otherwise flat surface, runes were carved into its stone. Runes Faith could not read. Runic reading wasn’t a class available to anyone under their seventh year in the Academy. Runes were very similar to hieroglyphics, shapes whose meaning depended on what other runes were nearest them, almost like calligraphy in the most ancient sense.
She exhaled. Maybe she should’ve gotten the guys. Maybe they’d know what it said.
As she debated it, the door near her swung open, a stale wind crawling from it. Faith glanced up, at the towers of the temple, at their jagged points and generally creepy design. She probably shouldn’t go in, but what if this was what she was looking for, the Cave of Memories? Really, she had no choice. She had to go in.
Faith braced herself, wrapping her arms around her chest as she headed inside. Almost immediately, the door closed firmly behind her.
Okay, spooky.
Candelabras on the wall magically lit, glowing an eerie purple fire. A long, narrow pathway of black and violet stood before her, and with a shrug, she walked along it. The temple didn’t seem so long on the outside; its inner sanctum was longer and wider.
What kind of magic does this place have? She wondered as the long pathway ended inside a room that was taken straight out of her nightmares.
No more purple-fire candles on the walls, because there were no walls. There was only stone beneath her. Blackstone, with no veins of purple. To say she couldn’t see shit would imply that she could, in fact, see some things—but it would be wrong. Faith couldn’t see anything. Zip. Zilch. Nada.
“Quest-seeker,” a voice rang out through the dark, empty space. “Step forward.” It was monotone, and she couldn’t tell if it belonged to a woman or a man.
Her group’s motto, what’s the worst that could happen? rang through her head, and she didn’t see any other options short of turning around and going back while saying oopsy daisy, my bad, so Faith stepped forward into the pitch-black room, her feet only hesitating until she felt the firm stone beneath her. She could not step again, her hesitant toes found out, for there was nothing in front of her but a sharp drop.
“Answer with your heart, and the path forward shall be revealed to you,” the voice carried on. “Answer with your head, and the path behind you shall be taken.”
Behind her, Faith saw the hall’s strange purple fires grow in intensity. Sure, she was ready for whatever riddle-filled questions this voice could give her. She was just awesome at riddles.
“Do you believe yourself to be Faith Marie Blackwell?”
Uh, how did the voice know who she was? And her middle name, which she never, ever used. Talk about uber creepy. The short, fuzzy hairs on the back of her neck stood straight up. Her fingers tightened into two balled fists. Now was not the time to be nervous, she told herself.
Figuring she had to go with the flow, Faith finally answered, “Yes.” As she spoke, another stone appeared in front of her, this one a blindingly bright white instead of black. The only bit of color in the room, and the only source of light. She truly was in the midd
le of a black pit of nothingness. No windows, no sunlight. No anything. She moved onto the white tile, hoping all the questions would be as easy as the first.
Really, she should’ve known better.
“Have you ever wondered who your father was?”
“Yes.” Another easy answer, another white block before her. She moved to it, and the one behind her remained. The second was slightly above the first; she had to step up six inches to stand on it. Almost like the beginnings of a stairwell.
“Are you angry at Penelope for keeping his identity a secret?”
A secret? Her mother told her he abandoned them. Faith never asked beyond that. Why should she? A man who could abandon his pregnant wife was not a man Faith wanted to get to know; even when she was a child, she’d thought the same way. He could go jump off a bridge for all she cared—
As she was lost in her thoughts, the area around her shuddered, and she held herself steady as the white step behind her faded. Faith didn’t need to move back to know it was completely gone and if she lost the step below her, she’d fall straight down into…well, into a pit of blackness.
She had taken too long to answer. The silence had meant she thought too much about what she wanted to say. The voice wanted her gut answers.
“No,” she finally said, knowing it was the truth, even though it took her a while to get there. “I’m not.” At least the white stone beneath her remained in place. She had no clue what would happen to her, where she’d go, if she fell.
“If you could discover who he was, would you?”
“Never,” she said with a shrug. Truly, she didn’t care about him. She wasn’t one of those kids who daydreamed about their absent parent. Whatever her father would’ve given her, her grandma more than made up for it.
“Are you the Harbinger, the fabled Human meant to slay the risen Dread King?”
She blinked. “I am.” Another white stone, risen a few inches above the other. Wherever they led her, they led her upwards. If only she could see her destination to know how much more of this game of twenty questions she had left.
It went on like this for a while. The voice asked her numerous questions about her feelings and her fate of being the Harbinger. It asked about Christine, if she thought her grandma had lost it after she was abandoned by her husband. It asked about her best friend Cara, if Faith missed her. The answers to most of the questions were clear and obvious, not taking too long to think about, unlike the last one involving her father.
The white stone staircase was a perfect spiral, leading her up in the darkness. She was doing good, until the voice asked her a strange question.
“Are you willing to do whatever it takes to complete your preordained destiny with the Dracon known as Dracyrus?”
She blinked. Whatever it takes? It seemed like quite the blanket statement, didn’t it? Whatever it took could mean a lot of things. Would Faith sacrifice an entire race just to beat him? One of the white steps behind her faded into nothing, the step at the lowest point of the white makeshift staircase.
Would she condemn a life that wasn’t hers to give? Another step disappeared, gone as it flickered out of existence.
Could she be so cruel as to connive and murder like Ophelia did? She wasn’t a killer. She didn’t want to kill anyone, even if said someone deserved it. Would she, could she do whatever it took to beat Dracyrus? Honestly, she wasn’t even certain she wanted to beat him, with all her confusing feelings for the guy.
Time seemed to blur, all the white steps behind her were gone by the time Faith said, “No.” The one under her did not fade away. It remained firmly in place with her admission of truth. Of course she wouldn’t do whatever it took. She wasn’t the kind of person who could do that. If it was what fated wanted from her, fate would be sorely disappointed.
“Step forward.” As the voice spoke again, a giant platform appeared before Faith, like etched stained glass. A mosaic of glowing colors and hues in the otherwise dark space. It wasn’t too wide, maybe twenty feet in diameter, and when Faith stepped onto it, the mosaic swirled into a picture.
A portrait of Dracyrus, made of thousands of smaller glass pieces, though the platform was completely flat. He stood with his head held high, the fur cloak draped around his shoulders and his longsword on his hip. Even though it was only a crude imitation of him, she felt her heart flutter.
Bad, bad Faith.
When she finally tore her gaze from the mosaic tiles, Faith saw she wasn’t alone. She saw…her mother?
Penelope wore the same style of suit she always did, a homage to her boss and the bane of Faith’s existence, President Tullie. A plain grey suit, form-fitting pants and a tucked-in, white undershirt. Her dark eyes were narrowed at Faith, as if she judged her. Faith knew this thing wasn’t her mother, but it was hard not to stare when it wore her face so unnervingly well.
“It’s time you faced the truth,” Penelope spoke, having an exact replica of her voice as well. It was not the same voice who’d asked her all the questions.
“What truth?” Faith asked, wondering if she was going to have to fight her mother. With the mosaic under their feet, this would make a neat arena. She wouldn’t say no to it. She might actually get a sense of enjoyment out of it. Though, she now remembered, she was still naked.
That…put a damper on things. Fighting when she was naked was actually not on her bucket list of things to do before she died.
Faith held her arms crossed before her, wishing for some clothes and some pain-relieving medicine. Her headache was not going away. If anything, it only grew stronger as time wore on. She had to remember to thank Nilda for it.
“The truth of it all,” Penelope said, hands clasped behind her back. Damn. She even had her mother’s stance down pat. “The truth of why you’re here. No more secrets, no more lies. From me, you will hear nothing but the truth.”
Faith sent an unsure glare toward the thing that looked like her mother. “O-kay?”
“You’re the Harbinger, not by fate, but by chance.” So she drew the short straw. Great. “You are my daughter,” Penelope added, “but you belong to the Second.”
She belonged to the Second? That didn’t even make sense.
Faith had to ask, “How do I belong to the Second? Until the field trip, I never stepped foot here.” This thing loved the truth so much, so there it was, laid right in front of them both. The Second had no claim on her, beside the Harbinger shit.
“Not true,” the lookalike Penelope was swift to disagree, very much like the real Penelope. “You were conceived here, during one of the first missions to the Second. At the time, I loved him, but then I discovered I was only his prize, that I was promised to him before I was born, so I left and never came back until I had to get you.”
What…what the hell was she talking about?
“Does that mean I’m not Human?” Faith reeled, though she still wasn’t sure if she could trust a word coming out of her mouth. Conceived in the Second…it didn’t make sense. Her mother was not the type of woman who’d pause a mission to get laid. Or to fall in love. Either one seemed so far-fetched Faith couldn’t help but frown.
“You are Human, more Human than most. He will try to find you, so be ready for him.”
“Who—”
“This is not about your father. The beginning of your journey began years before, after your grandfather married your grandmother.” Emotion flashed across Penelope’s eyes, emotion that looked so unabashedly genuine. “It was not your grandfather’s first time in the Second, but he planned on making it his home after he left her. He slew the Dread King in the lands of Furen Ere, defeated his army with his own Elven one, and he sacrificed others to open the gateways to Earth.”
Faith found her breath failed her. If she wasn’t lying, if she told the truth, then her grandfather was…
“You are the granddaughter of Vince Reed, the last known Harbinger of mankind.”
In the stories, in the official story that the Division swore on, V
ince Reed never returned to Earth after he stumbled into the Second. Was it all a lie?
Could she truly be the granddaughter of Vince Reed? And then, who the hell was her father?
Below them, the mosaic of Dracyrus swirled, bits of moving color, settling on a portrait of another man. Vince Reed. His dark black hair, eyes that looked more like hers, a green, rather than her mother’s swampy brown. He wore a suit of armor, a tall, thin woman clinging to his side, the side whose arm did not hold the Ageless Blade. A familiar Elf, with her jewels and her long, flowing yellow hair.
Ophelia.
Was that why he left Christine? For an Elven lover? Rage threatened to swallow Faith as she demanded, “Why tell me all this?” These were all very interesting facts, if they were true, but they were not the ones she came to find out.
“You came here for the truth. This place holds nothing but.”
“I want the truth about Dracyrus, about the first Harbinger, not my messed-up family.”
Penelope’s lips tightened to a frown. “Very well. Step forward, and you shall find what you seek.”
Not understanding what she meant, Faith took a hesitant step forward. Almost immediately, the mosaic broke below her, shattering into a million tiny pieces of color, swirling with no help from a breeze. Almost like magic. She fell, down into the unknown depths of the tower that seemed to stretch onward for eternity. Penelope’s figure was gone; nothing but blackness above her and the swirling broken mosaic tiles around her.
She fell.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Faith seemed to fall forever. As she fell, the mosaic pieces following her, swirling around her, disappeared piece by piece until she fell in pitch blackness. Which was a-okay with her, because she needed some time to think.
Vince Reed was her grandfather? He left Christine after marrying her, after impregnating her, to run back to the Second to be with Ophelia? It was a good thing he died after that, assuming that’s what he did, considering the official story on Earth was so wrong. No one ever said Vince had a family.
The Dread King: A Reverse Harem Fantasy (The Harbinger Book 3) Page 17