Unwinnable

by May Dawson

  It would help if I could see her standing, to better gauge her height, but I was sure she’d been the figure in the woods. If it was indeed her, she’d been the last one I’d seen before her magic broke through mine like a spear, fracturing our shield into a million pieces and leaving us to face the Ravagers. Without that moment, we would likely have eluded the Fae and been well on our way to the temple by now.

  But why? Why had she been out in the woods alone? I somehow doubted anyone knew she’d been out there on her own, long before she appeared with the Fae who fought with us.

  She gave me a cheeky look as she bit into an apple. “Why are you staring at me, wizard?”

  “He’s probably never seen anyone with such terrible table manners in any of the worlds,” Arlen muttered.

  She glanced at him, quirking an eyebrow. “Finally, he speaks. Only to be rude, of course—speaking of manners.”

  “You just look familiar,” I said.

  “Maybe you saw me in your world when I was visiting,” she suggested. “Or do you make a habit of skulking through ours?”

  Well, yes, but I wasn’t going to discuss that with her.

  Rafe put his hand over the top of my wine goblet as I reached for it. I sighed—it wasn’t my first trip through the Fae word, and despite the rumors, their food wasn’t any danger to us unless it was poisoned or enchanted.

  Jensen said, “I’ll be the experiment. Stop me if I do anything stupid.” He raised his glass.

  “I always try,” Rafe muttered.

  To Lake, Arlen said, “I thought I glimpsed the Huntress in the woods today.”

  “You wouldn’t have seen her if she hadn’t wanted you to see her,” Lake answered.

  Arlen shrugged his shoulders. For the first time, there was a flicker of interest in his eyes as he said, “Then perhaps she did want me to see her.”

  “Try to contain yourself,” Raura said dryly. “Your crush on the Huntress is positively embarrassing.”

  Down the table, I could see Maddie trying to draw Tess into conversation. Tess was reluctant, but talking to her. I couldn’t imagine Tess would hold out long against Maddie’s charming smile. A swell of pride touched my chest when I watched Maddie. There was no one else like her.

  I had a feeling Raura wouldn’t want me to share where I thought she looked familiar from in the midst of this conversation, so I waited until dinner was over and followed her into the hall. Rafe glanced at me sharply, as if my abrupt departure wasn’t unnoticed, but they all trusted me and my strange ways by now.

  Raura turned around in the hall. “Do you intend to follow me to my bedchamber, stranger? Because I guarantee you, it isn’t any nicer than the cells. Worse, actually. Just barely a cut above an actual dungeon, if you ask me.”

  “I’m not interested in your bedchamber.” I flashed a cool smile. “I’m interested in why I saw you in the woods, Huntress.”

  It was an educated guess, but the way her eyes widened told me everything I needed to know.

  She grabbed my wrist and towed me down the hall. Then, when she was sure we were alone, she hissed, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  I yanked my wrist from her grasp and folded my hands behind my back. Although Raura didn’t mean it that way, I didn’t like for any woman but Maddie to touch me, despite the way that I had toyed with Alice.

  “I don’t care about your secrets, and I don’t care to reveal them,” I shot back. “I care about why. And most of all—I care about making sure my friend survives the Feddlewig tomorrow.”

  She scoffed. “You want me to cheat?”

  “You say that like anyone should give a damn about playing by the rules when the game itself is stupid,” I said. “You were the one I saw in the woods.”

  She shrugged. “So what if I was, wizard? You’ll never convince any of them of that, anyway.”

  That fact bothered her—it meant something to her to be the Huntress. It cost her something to keep her anonymity from her friends, but she felt she must. An interesting mystery to untangle.

  “Mm. You’ve called me a wizard twice now—how do you know what I am?”

  “You’re all witches now. I heard the news.”

  I shook my head. “Try again. You know I come from a different world than my friends—how?”

  “I’m Fae. I know things.”

  I abruptly pinned her to the wall, my hands to either side of her head, caging her in. Her lips parted in surprise.

  “I don’t give a damn about your secrets, Huntress. But I want you to tell me everything you know about the Feddlewig and defeating it.”

  “And then you’ll leave me alone?” she demanded.

  “Probably not.” I gave her a thin smile. “But I don’t plan on staying in your jolly murderous little corner of the universe very long. I have a curse to break and then I’ll leave, and you can return to whatever fucked-up hijinks you’re up to.”

  She stared at me in challenge. “I’ll tell you everything I know about the Feddlewig, cheater.”

  “Lovely, Huntress.”

  Someone came around the corner then, and she suddenly twined her arms around my neck, pulling me close. I exhaled a breath of surprise into her ear, although thankfully, she just put her lips close to my ear; it looked as if we were kissing from the right angle, but it was nothing more.

  “Meet me on the battlements at midnight,” she murmured. “I’ll tell you everything about the Feddlewig.”

  “Don’t murder me,” I warned her, sure she had an ulterior motive in getting me alone.

  “No promises.” She gave me a wicked smile.

  The man who had just come around the corner stopped abruptly, and the two of us looked to him.

  Lake’s eyes narrowed with hurt. But he said roughly to me, “What do you want with her?”

  “Lake,” she murmured, pressing her hand against my chest to push me away. “Don’t be jealous. I’m just being hospitable.”

  Lake gave me a long look, full of warning. He must have seen me follow Raura and tried to come to her rescue.

  I had a feeling, however, that Raura might be far more likely to come to his rescue than vice versa.

  “You know, I’m not helpless, Lake,” she said, her voice irritated.

  “I know that,” he said, completely unconvincingly. Ah, the protective impulse. The Fae suffered from those too.

  As I passed him, he muttered, “Hurt her, and I’ll kill you.”

  Sure. I jerked my head in a nod of understanding; it would do no use to point out that I didn’t want Raura.

  I won’t hurt her.

  If she doesn’t try to kill me.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Blake

  I walked around the house later that night. Skyla was in bed already, and I’d thought Aunt Jennifer was too, but as I was testing the glass sliding doors out to the yard, she asked, “What are you doing?”

  I jumped like I’d just been scalded. “Just checking that the house is locked up.”

  “Why?”

  “Because if I was going to steal from someone, this is the part of town I’d head to.”

  Aunt Jennifer’s hands were on her hips when I turned around. Judging from her pinched face, she didn’t think I had a future in stand-up comedy.

  But it was Kit’s face that I couldn’t shake. There had been something wicked and sharp in her gaze, just for one second, that made my heart beat faster every time I thought about it.

  “We should be careful,” I said, not knowing how to begin to talk about any of this with her. But I wanted to make sure she was on high alert when she was out, and that she protected Skyla when I wasn’t around.

  “Is there something you’re worried about, Blake?” she asked.

  Werewolves. It sounded crazy. I couldn’t tell her what I thought I remembered. Part of me thought I was losing my mind.

  “Nope,” I said. “I’m just looking out for my little sister. That’s my job.”

  Her face creased as if sh
e’d just bitten into something sour. “No, it’s really not.”

  Right, she was still stuck on the idea that Skyla and I were kids, and that Chase was failing us.

  “Whatever,” I said, heading past her toward the stairs. “You want to blame Chase for everything, go on. I don’t care.”

  “It’s not about blame,” she said.

  “Sure.” I might call my brother a dickhead mentally every other time I thought of him, but I hated the way Jennifer acted as if he was failing us. At least Chase tried. She hadn’t wanted us around.

  “Blake.” Her voice came out sharp, and I stopped with my foot on the bottom stair and turned back to her.

  “What?”

  “I know you’re mixed up in something dangerous. I know the kind of trouble you were getting in back before Chase moved you out to the middle of nowhere.”

  “Oh really?” I asked. The memory of how Chase had showed up to protect me—even though I didn’t want him to—kept playing over and over, now that I remembered that day. The gun. Silas, handing over money to those men. My brother, dropping to his knees as the wolf took him over… It had to be real.

  I almost forgot she was there until she sighed in frustration, and I added, “Then how come you didn’t do anything about it?”

  “That’s not fair.”

  “None of this is fair, Aunt Jennifer,” I said. “Not my mom dying, not the way you didn’t want Sky and me, but you don’t want us here either—”

  “That’s not true!”

  “Yeah, it is.” I took my foot off the step and turned to face her. My face was suddenly hot, as if I were furious.

  If Chase were here, I would’ve told him what I knew, and I would’ve told him about Kit, and we probably would have screamed at each other, but at least we would have been on the same side.

  Aunt Jennifer and I weren’t going to yell. And we were also never going to be on the same side.

  She just stared at me, her face crumpling as if she might cry, then smoothing out again, and regret washed over me.

  “Sorry,” I said, taking my foot down off the step.

  She shook her head. “No, it’s… I never meant to let your mom down. And when I let you and Chase and Skyla down, I… she would have been hurt by how this all turned out.”

  “It’s not your fault,” I said, and I felt like I should go to her and hug her, but I just didn’t have it in me right now.

  I was tired. Someone always needed something from me, and I had to pretend like everything was fine. Be a man. Be the man of the house. Even when Chase was here, I didn’t want to look weak in front of my brother.

  Then I went up the stairs, without looking back.

  I knew I wasn’t going to get much sleep tonight, anyway.

  I just had a feeling there was something bad coming for us, and all night long, I knew I’d sleep lightly, listening for any noise.

  Chase had said he wouldn’t have international text or calling on his school trip, which sounded like bullshit of the highest order. But I tried texting him anyway.

  At one in the morning, when I couldn’t sleep, I even called him, as I paced around by the window, looking out from time to time.

  But of course he didn’t answer.

  And I kept watch for nothing.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Maddie

  After dinner, when we’d all returned to the hallway, I looked for Tyson, but didn’t see him at first. Jensen jerked his thumb at the door at the other end of the hall.

  Somehow, he always knew what I needed, and he was always looking out for me. I wrapped my arm around his waist and he squeezed me tight as I brushed my lips over his cheek. He caught my lips with his, his kiss searing, claiming, even if we only took a moment.

  He squeezed me tighter, then released me. “Stop stalling. Go fix things.”

  “Don’t boss me,” I told him lightly.

  “Don’t need it, then,” he said, his voice just as teasing. He looked at me with heat in his eyes, as if he wanted to kiss me again, but instead he gave me a gentle shove toward the door.

  I climbed the narrow, twisting stairs and slipped out onto the battlements. I was relieved to find Tyson there.

  “Did you want to be alone?” I asked as I closed the door behind me. We were up so high, the wind singing around us in a rough way that felt dangerous if I dared to step too close to the edge, and it reminded me too much of the times on the bridge over the river. The memory of the look on his face when we fought that night on the bridge curled around my heart.

  He was leaning against the stone wall surrounding the roof. The moon and stars seemed brighter out here than from anywhere I’d seen them on Earth, even on the most remote camping trips Piper and her men had dragged me on. The moonlight reflected off his hair and the shirt hugging his broad shoulders. All I wanted to do was wrap my arms around his waist and press my face into his back, as I once would have, but my heart beat too quickly at the idea.

  There wasn’t much I was afraid of, but my heart couldn’t take one more rejection from Tyson Atlas.

  He was quiet so long that I put my hand on the doorknob, ready to go back in. My heart ached, but Ty needed to focus on the next day’s combat. I didn’t want to distract him.

  “No,” he said finally, turning to me. The sight of his handsome face struck me to my core in that moment, his bright eyes and the slow smile. “I came out here to be alone, but I’d rather be with you.”

  My heart lurched. “I don’t want to distract you from tomorrow.”

  He shrugged. “We’ve planned all we can. Tomorrow will bring…what it brings.”

  I joined him against the stone rail that led around the rooftop, and the two of us studied the swaying treetops far below as if we’d find some answers there.

  I didn’t know what to say. I wanted to make up with Tyson, but when I thought about what would come tomorrow, my mouth went dry. It seemed too small to bring up our relationship.

  “It’s beautiful here,” I said. “Too bad everything here wants to kill us.”

  I couldn’t stop thinking about the first time that Ty and I had sex, right after we came into the Fae world. Right now I wouldn’t mind being attacked by one of those crazy sentient plants. It would be nice to have an excuse.

  The two of us were both stuck in our heads; it was Tyson’s logic that had forced us apart, even when our very souls sang that we belong together. Now I wasn’t sure how to recover the closeness and strength the bond brought us both.

  “What’s that moving down there?” he asked.

  I shifted closer to him, straining to see what he did in the darkness as he pointed down. I finally saw a goblin lurching through below, obviously hunting as it dragged a club behind it. Then I pointed out to him the giant cat that was prowling through the treetops above it.

  The cat finally jumped down onto the goblin, and the sounds of the fight—the roaring, the crashing through the underbrush—wafted thinly up to us from so high above.

  Tyson cleared his throat and turned to me. “Looks like us for the past few months.”

  I raised an eyebrow at him. “They’re trying to rip out each other’s throats.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  No, I really didn’t. We’d been fighting but it had never been vicious. We’d both been wounded—even though neither of us meant to hurt the other. I chewed my lower lip as I leaned against the stone wall. I didn’t want to argue with him, not now.

  “You were right,” he said, crossing his arms as he leaned beside me, his back to the battlements. His voice was light. “Don’t you want to gloat or anything?”

  “Do you really want to do this now?” I asked.

  “I think we have to. If things go badly tomorrow…” he glanced at me sideways.

  “Things won’t go badly tomorrow.” I was furious at him for even saying that, and I tried to swallow my anger. I was just…scared. So scared.

  “Well, if my lady commands it,” he said, his voice teasin
g.

  God, I loved him but he could be so irritating. There are some serious problems with being in love with seven men, and the primary one is that every man is annoying from time to time.

  “Do you want me to gloat?” I demanded. “Because honestly, I don’t feel like gloating. I feel like I told you we weren’t brother-and-sister, and you wouldn’t listen, and we wasted all that time we could’ve spent together.”

  The teasing look had left Tyson’s face, which was frozen. Well, he’d asked.

  “We made each other and everyone around us miserable,” I said. “And for what?”

  “I didn’t know,” he said hotly. “I was trying to protect you.”

  “I don’t need you to protect me, Tyson,” I shot back. “Not when we’re on a mission and not from my wayward horny sinner’s heart, like you decided to do for the past several months.”

  “I don’t mind you being a wayward horny sinner one bit,” he said, crossing his arms. He was starting to look angry too. “But Jesus, Maddie, I thought you might be my half sister. I wasn’t going to risk that.”

  “So you didn’t believe me, but you meet some random Fae who’s like, hey, Fae-blood, you’re in charge, and that seems legit?”

  “It’s not that I don’t trust you,” he said, “but you were pretty invested in the idea we weren’t related.”

  “Well, yeah. Because I love you for some reason, you idiot.”

  “And I love you too,” he said, his tone just as testy, “but that doesn’t mean I always think you’re right.”

  “I’m not saying I’m always right.” I threw up my hands in exasperation.

  “Whether you say it or not, you believe it. You might as well admit to it.”

  In the distance, there was a triumphant roar as one of the monsters fighting below triumphed over the other. Ripping throats out was so much simpler than loving someone.

  I faced him down, exasperation making my cheeks hot.

  “I don’t want to fight with you,” I said. “Not when you have to fight tomorrow…”