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 Order 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.”
49
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 gasp
ed. “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 never 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.
Seeing her friend, Flint could only cover her mouth. He didn’t look like the sweet boy she’d once known. His body was as muscle-bound as Cain’s got when he started the change. His skin was raw. Most of his fingernails were down to the quick, the fingertips bloody and bent at odd angles at the knuckles. His clothes were in tatters, and he looked as though he hadn’t bathed in weeks.
He moaned, staring up at Graham with a quizzical set to his brow and a rim of red in his eyes.
“Abel,” she breathed, and he jerked. Every muscle in his body went rigid, and his eyes cast around the room.
Had he heard her?
“Abel?” She walked closer. Up until now she’d been a ghost to everyone but Graham. “Abel,” she said again.
But his eyes were glued to Graham’s face. “Who are you?” he snapped, and his voice made her cringe.
It was raw and cracking.
“What did they do to you?” she whimpered as she reached out to touch him, but her fingers passed right through him.
Graham grunted something as he quickly released the leather restraints fastening Abel to the metal gurney.
Then Graham turned and ran.
She cried out as she was yanked from Abel’s room, forced to follow the halfling back out into the nightmare.
“No. Go back,” she pleaded. “You can’t just leave him like that—you have to help him leave. I won’t go with you if you don’t get him out of there. That was the deal.”
She felt the shock of his rage slam against her. But the earth cradled her, the earth gave her power, gave her strength, and slowly the pain of his blast turned smooth and calm again.
With a sound of exasperation, Graham turned, running back through the halls to where she spied Abel struggling to crawl forward, saw a body plow into the back of his skull and saw him pass out on the floor.
“Hurry,” she snapped.
Graham grabbed Abel’s arms, dragging him, seething with rage, and deep down she feared she’d do anything to make sure she never had to keep up her end of the deal. Something about this halfling terrified her. But she forgot all that when once again Abel was directly in her sight.
“It’s okay, sweetie,” she whispered, even knowing he couldn’t hear her. Abel’s head slumped forward.
He was unconscious.
And just ahead was a door, and behind that door, freedom. But bodies were piling up. Guards were swarming the halls like a true hive, a thick wave of them tearing and ripping into fleeing prisoners around them.
They were within yards of making it—mere yards—when a hand reached out from beneath the dog pile to the left of Graham and latched onto his ankle.
Suddenly vines of brambles and ivy crawled from out of cracks in the cement foundation, coiling like anacondas around his ankles.
“What have you done!” he roared, looking back at Flint with the fury of betrayal in his eyes.
But she shook her head, staring at her hands. Her tattoo swayed on her bicep as though from a gentle breeze. No magick stirred in her.
“I didn’t—”
Flint screamed when Graham was snatched up and a shifter ripped into his throat. Pain rippled like crystalline fire down her middle, and the connection s
he’d had to Graham went instantly, deathly quiet.
Crying, she called to the earth to release her.
Flint shot through the dirt, landing sprawled out on the grass. Cain was there immediately and he yanked her up, held her tight to his warm body.
“Flint, oh my God, Flint, what happened?”
Still traumatized by Graham’s violent death and the almost-physical severing of their connection, she trailed her fingers along the vines wrapped delicately around her thighs, drawing what strength she could from them. She hadn’t called those vines at the prison.
There was no way. True, she hadn’t wanted to go with him.
But then she thought back to the storm and the chaos that’d happened just an hour ago when she’d interrogated the drone, and a horrible, sick feeling of dread wormed through her gut.
Flat, fuzzy leaves wrapped almost tenderly around her thighs, and the wave of their peace soothed her, infused her bones enough so that she could think again, could speak again.
While he’d been waiting for her return, Cain must have gone and woken up the others because Adam and Rhiannon were there too, staring at her with wide eyes.
“I saw him. I saw Abel.”
Cain’s eyes grew large, and the irises glowed with a pinprick of heated red. She laced her fingers through his and nodded gently.
“He’s alive, Cain.”
Adam shuddered beside him.
Rhiannon leaned over. “He’s alive? Abel’s alive?” Shock and excitement warred on the kanlungan’s brow.
“Yes. He’s injured, but he’s alive. I saw him. I really saw him.” A strangled laugh spilled off Flint’s tongue.
Cain hugged her tighter and then Rhi grabbed her hand.
“Did you see where they were? Do you know?”
“There wasn’t time. There was only chaos, Graham… my contact…” She sucked in a sharp breath, still feeling the violence of his death beating against her skull. “There wasn’t time,” she ended lamely.
“But now at least you’ve seen him.” Cain’s words were adamant. “And that’s more than we had yesterday.”
His kiss on the top of her head was hard, but welcomed all the same. Rhiannon got up, pacing the field behind their trailer, back and forth, muttering beneath her breath.
The Complete Tempted Series Page 56