“I am here to prepare you for the challenges you will face.”
“Why?” She popped a wedge of cheese in her mouth and then settled back in her chair, sated for now. “Because you’re my consort?”
He chuckled. “Yes. Though I suspect you believe wrongly of me. I am not your intended mate as you seemed to suggest earlier.”
Her brows dipped. “But Kestrel said—”
“That I was your consort. Yes.” He nodded. “Through the trials. I was chosen by The Ciardah to train and prepare you. Only.”
She might have blushed at the thought that she’d basically pulled the “I love someone else card” out earlier, but all she felt was relief.
“So you’re my friend?”
Amber eyes gleamed. “Ally. For now.” He drummed his fingers on the armrest.
“Well, that didn’t sound creepy or anything.”
His lips twitched. Call her crazy, but she thought she amused him. “In our courts it would be foolish to be friends with anyone. Those closest to me would stab me in the back without a moment’s hesitation if they knew I had something they wanted. That is simply court politics.”
“Sounds fun.”
Taking off one of the axes from his belt, he played with the blade while eyeing her studiously.
It was such a relief knowing that granddaddy wasn’t expecting her to mate and make fae babies with the handsome zombie. At least that was one problem off her hands.
“Why did you follow the abomination?”
“Abomination?” She sounded as confused as she felt. Then she gasped. “Do you mean Abel? Because he’s my friend, and that’s what friends do. I need to fix him. I have to fix him again.”
“There is nothing sane in him. I’ve felt his essence. He is nothing but rage and pain now. A perfect stag.”
She growled. “And apparently so am I. So that’s something he and I have in common.”
His brow lifted. “I could see about arranging a pardon for you with The Ciardah, just for yourself. Get you out of here. At least that way we’ll have our stag and you can be freed.”
“Okay, one”—she raised a finger—“I have nothing to apologize for, so there will be no pardoning of squat. And two, I’m not leaving here without him.”
“Why not? When freedom is being offered you?”
“Wow. You really aren’t human are you? Like is there even a shred of humanity inside your dark heart that you can’t see how incredibly offensive of a statement that is to me?”
Flint recalled the conversation she’d had with Katy after learning of who she really was. Katy had told her not only was she soulless but that she’d care about nothing and no one.
Maybe she’d had reason to believe that. Flint didn’t hate Idris, he seemed cool for an emotionally stunted and shut-off, soulless guy.
Cain had told her he felt her soul. Felt her kindness. Being here cemented one thing for her, he’d been right. She did feel love, hope, and pain. She felt.
Emotions she wasn’t sure another creature here could even hope to understand.
Intelligent amber eyes continued to study her like she was an oddity. She’d made him laugh. A couple of times. Not deep belly chuckles or anything, but he’d been amused by her.
And she doubted he’d been faking it. So maybe the key to her gaining a trusted ally here was to try to make him connect with some form of humanity.
It was a long shot; she wasn’t sure the fae were even capable of it considering what she’d seen already, but she could try.
“Tell you what, zombie boy”—she gave him a look daring him to say anything about her choice of pet name. Smart guy that he was, he said nothing—“we don’t ever mention that again, and you teach me the ways of the Jedi.”
Once again he looked completely baffled as to whether he should laugh or not. Finally he shook his head. “You are strange.”
“Thanks.”
Snorting, he nodded. “Fine. I accept your terms. If you want to survive the gauntlet, then first things first. You learn to mind-walk.”
“Mind-walk?”
She wondered if that was anything at all like what she’d done back with Graham.
“It is a way we can communicate across vast distances without having to actually tear open a time rift.”
“Tear. Open. A. Time. Rift?” Science fiction much? And yet… Holy crap, she could potentially go on to be even more powerful than her sweetie pie. Rubbing her hands together gleefully, she grinned broadly. “Oh boy, this sounds like fun. I want to learn it all. Everything. I want to learn everything I can do.”
“Good. Because the challenges have been designed specifically to trip you up, halfling. The Ciardah knows what makes you you, and everything he plans will bring you to the very brink of ruin.”
“How long do I have before the gauntlet starts?” She was really hoping for at least a month. Maybe in a month she could learn how to—
“Three days.”
“Three. Days?” She squeaked. “This is impossible. I only have three days to learn how to be a proper faerie? But Dean said I was going to be here years.”
His full lips twitched as he held up a manicured finger. “First things first, we aren’t called faeries. Leave that to the fairy tales. We are fae. Sidhe. Light and dark, ancient beings that sprang up from the wild magic of creation. That is who you are too, halfling, and if you allow me to guide you, it is who I can unlock. Secondly, our times run apart.”
She nodded. “That’s what he said, but what does that mean exactly?”
Shrugging in much the same way Dean had, he raised his hands, palms up. “It could mean anything. It all depends on when you entered and where you leave. To you this might only feel like hours, or it could feel like years.”
She ran cold with goose bumps. She’d never been much for science, but a horrible thought wormed through her brain. “How many years? Exactly?”
“I can’t say, halfling, and you would do well not to think about it.”
“I don’t like the sound of that.”
A corner of his lips turned down. “You need to trust me, darkling.”
She chuckled, but the sound lacked humor. “I remember someone telling me I shouldn’t trust him.”
His nostrils flared as pinpricks of light danced through his amber eyes. “In this place, you can trust me.”
“I want to leave, Idris.” She opted for total honesty, being completely serious for once. “And I want to take Abel with me. Tell me the truth, is there another way?”
Again she was trusting he would be frank with her. His gaze was just as serious as hers as he said softly, “If you will not leave without your friend, then you only have two choices, darkling. Stay and fight, win your gauntlet, or become our stag and hope you’re clever enough to survive it.”
Neither option sounded survivable, but then again, she’d always thrived on high-risk situations. How hard could this be, right? Face impossible odds, risk life and limb, and become king of the mountain.
Sounded like fun.
Minus the part of having to win a gauntlet that seemed crafted to basically ruin her and kill off any chance of her and Abel ever leaving here alive. Not to mention the fact that she might hop out of this place only looking nineteen while Cain had aged well into his forties.
But yanno, technicalities.
Licking her lips, she realized two things. One, she’d love Cain even if he got old. He’d just have to find a way to deal with their sudden May-December romance. And two, there wasn’t a darn thing she could do to change her situation.
She sighed deeply. “Then I’m all yours, master. Teach me.”
He nodded. “Look at the mirror.”
She was about to correct him and tell him there was no mirror, just a bunch of musty books. But just like the forest had popped up from nothing, so too did the floor-to-ceiling, gilded mirror.
“Focus you gaze upon it, study your likeness, and forget about anything and everything else. Forget about the gaunt
let. The Ciardah. Death. Ophelia—”
As he talked, she felt herself slipping into a trancelike state. She looked at herself, and for the first time saw a young woman who wasn’t a freak, or weird, or a monster. Flint was beautiful. Otherworldly.
Her skin was so pale, glowing like milk in moonlight. Her hair, the red of fire, curled becomingly down around her shoulders. The vines on her arms swayed hypnotically in a nonexistent breeze.
The white robes she wore made her look more goddess-like and less mortal. Less human. The slanted shape of her exotic eyes, which glowed a preternatural blue, and the rose-bloom tips of her claws only added to the effect.
If she hadn’t known this was her, if she’d seen this woman walking past in the carnival, Flint would have only been able to say one thing—she was magnificent.
“Now close your eyes,” Idris commanded, “and see him. See your Abel.”
Her eyes slipped shut, and the image of her friend formed as clear as a picture in her mind. At first he was dark-skinned, a grotesque silhouette of what she’d sunk beneath the ground. But then the image began to evolve, to take on a new form.
He was smiling like he always did whenever he was around her. Slightly lanky and a bit goofy-looking, he was her good-hearted friend who’d invited her to sit at his lunch table the first day he’d seen her.
The one whom she’d snuck off to the theater with and laughed at the absurd zombie movie with. The one who’d invited her to the dance, who’d helped her pass her chem class… the boy everyone loved, including her.
“Do you see him?” Idris asked and she nodded. “Good. Then open your eyes.”
This time when she did Flint gazed not at herself but at the darkness Abel had become. Her throat clogged up at the sight of him. He was a rippling tower of steel and black muscle. Still in the cage he’d been placed in by Adam and the others earlier, but instead of raging as he’d been before, he was silent.
His mouth was slightly parted and his eyes shut.
“He’s asleep,” she whispered.
“No.” Idris shook his head. “He’s in suspended animation.”
“Why?” she asked, still not taking her gaze off her friend. Flint had hoped so much that by some miracle just having Abel on fae soil might reverse whatever it was Layla had done to her son. Her heart was a shattered, fractured thing inside her chest. She clutched at her robe.
“He is our prize.”
She hissed, turned her furious eyes to his. “Don’t you dare talk about him that way. He’s no one’s prize. I’m going to free him. Where is he now?”
Idris didn’t even flinch at her obvious anger. “He’s where he was left. And will remain so until either you free him or The Ciardah does.”
Clenching her molars, she looked back at her friend. Cain would die if he saw his brother this way. After all they’d done to find him, to free him, to know he was in even worse danger now was just heartrending. And all this was her fault.
Well, technically it was Grandpappy’s, but if she hadn’t brought Abel under, none of this would have ever happened.
“Ask yourself what you’re fighting for.” Idris said the words calmly, but she bristled anyway.
“Why are you insistent that I shouldn’t free him? I’m not letting you kill him, even if I have to die to prevent it.”
He tucked a hank of hair behind his large, pointed ears. Such a shame he was turning out to be a douchenozzle; he really did look like the hot zombie version of Legolas.
He remained silent for a moment, but it was long enough that she thought he meant not to answer. Finally he said, “I volunteered to be your consort for a reason, halfling.”
“I thought you said The Ciardah—”
Nodding, Idris flicked his wrist. “He did. He appointed you to me because I volunteered first.”
“Why?” She frowned.
He paused, throat working, and for a split second she was sure he wouldn’t answer. “Graham. Graham was my half brother.”
Something about the way he’d said it, like he’d latched onto a sudden idea rather than the truth had her ears tingling. But maybe she was reading too much into it.
Shaking her head, she said, “But you guys don’t look anything alike.”
Again Idris went eerily silent, his gaze intense, and it made her want to shiver. Jaw clenching, he said, “Fae are not like humans. We can be of the same blood and be vastly different in appearance.”
His eyes searched hers again, like he was silently trying to convey something to her.
She couldn’t seem to quite shake the feeling that there was more to his words than what he was actually saying. She frowned. She didn’t out-and-out want to call the guy a liar, but something didn’t quite ring true.
“Did you send him to me in the prison?”
It was a question that’d nagged at her, why Graham had found her and how he’d done it.
“I…” He rubbed his long fingers along his jaw, shook his head, and then said, “It’s complicated. Graham broke faith with our people.”
Her heart sank. “What’d he do?”
She couldn’t help but remember how he’d saved Abel at his own peril. In the end Abel was turned, and so Graham’s sacrifice had been for nothing, but the fact that he’d tried meant something to her.
“He found you. The other halfling. The royal princess hidden on Earth. You two shared a bond because of your Green Man nature. Not only did Graham tell The Ciardah of your existence, but he also told the light court. Sharing information like that is treason among my kind. The Ciardah had no choice but to cast him out. The Ciardah’s only goal since learning of your birth was to gift you with the spirit of the stag. That is why he visited you, why he taught you as he did. To strengthen you. To prepare you.”
“I don’t know that I’d use the word gift.”
Idris’s lips tugged downward at the corners. “It is a gift. It is an honor to run in the Hunt. Not every stag is sacrificed, Flint. If you’re strong enough, crafty enough, you can survive.”
“And then what?”
“And then you would become a royal in truth. You would rule your own house of dragons. You would bring honor to your clan, your peoples.”
She hadn’t known that. She’d just assumed being a stag meant she’d be killed. “But then why drag Abel into this?”
“Your friend was never supposed to be part of this. You brought him here; he is merely collateral. The Ciardah’s only objective was to get his hands on you, and if that meant deceiving you so you would drag the boy down here to heal him, so be it.”
That was an evil, rotten thing to do. But pretty much in keeping with what she currently thought of her grandpappy.
“So The Ciardah doesn’t hate me?”
“No one hates you. We don’t know you. But you have something we want—the power of wild magic that flows through your veins. You were born during the last Great Hunt. It is why you are so prized now.”
“And yet you would beg The Ciardah to release me so long as I sacrificed Abel to the Hunt?”
He gave a reluctant nod.
Not that she would dare in a million years. She’d rather die before doing that to Abel.
“You don’t belong here. You’re not one of us. You are of a different world, a different people. I sense it in you, the bond you’ve created on Earth. The desire you feel for your male.”
Heat crept into her cheeks. He felt her desire for Cain? Okay, that was just sorta skeevy and weird. Totally true, but still weird.
“Somehow I don’t think that’s the entire story.”
It wasn’t her imagination that a mysterious glint encompassed his amber eyes. But then again, maybe she was going nuts, because that light was gone from one second to the next. Maybe she was nothing but paranoid and seeing shadows where there were none.
Only problem was, she desperately wanted to be able to trust at least one person here.
“You have three days to learn what you can. And we waste time talking. You
see your friend…” He pointed to the mirror. “If there is something worth saving, now is the time to learn it for yourself.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I tested him and I found nothing. No flicker of humanity, no awareness other than his unquenchable thirst for carnage.”
Flint chewed on the inside of her cheek, sick to her stomach at the thought that there really was nothing she could do for Abel on this world or hers.
But it was only when things grew darkest that hope flared brightest. Flint was going to find a way. She’d made a promise, and she’d die before she broke it.
“But”—Idris leaned forward, resting his arms on his knees and staring at her intently—“for you there could be more. You’ve a connection to the beast I do not have. If you’re going to risk your neck for him, then shouldn’t you at least make certain the sacrifice is worth it?”
Turning her attention fully to the mirror and the image of her friend, Flint shoved all thoughts out of her mind. What she needed was a clear and focused mind with zero distractions.
Right before yanking Abel down into the earth, she could have sworn she’d seen a flicker of awareness inside him. A brief flash that’d connected him to her.
He might be more monster than man now, but he was still in there. She had to believe it. To do otherwise was inconceivable.
Blowing out a deep breath, she studied him. The rugged and sharp outlines of his now-deformed body. The claws on his feet and hands, the shaggy black hair that ran down his back in a skunk-like stripe, the elongated and unnatural-looking limbs.
There wasn’t a thing about him now that reminded her of the old Abel.
His chest rose and fell at a measured and even pace.
“You’re not focusing enough.”
“I’m focusing,” she snapped at Idris, then huffed at a stray hank of hair that’d slipped over her eye. “It wasn’t like this with Graham. I would sleep and it just happened.”
“Hm.” He rubbed his jaw. “Then perhaps close your eyes, and go into a trancelike state. Do not see the creature he has become but the boy you remember.”
Closing her eyes, she once again called the old image of Abel to mind, and immediately her mind zeroed in on a memory, one of her first memories with him. The night they’d “borrowed” one of Adam’s ATVs.
The Complete Tempted Series Page 67