Queen Fae (NYC Mecca Series Book 3)

by Jaymin Eve

“Come on, Ollie, you promised me you’d sneak me into the fights. You know I’ve never been before.”

  The ogre threw back his huge ugly head and laughed voraciously. “You outsider. You not allowed in. But since you drink me under the table, tonight you will get the chance.”

  I had a pretty good view of Kian’s face then, a wash of moonlight illuminating the street. And even though he was still swaying, his dark eyes were stone cold sober. Okay. There was definitely more going on here, and now I was wondering if I should have just followed his note from the start.

  It felt too late to turn back now, so when the ogre swept Kian along the path, they had a shadow. The pair moved much faster now, heading toward a very dark section of the village. No fires burned here, and the houses looked much more derelict. Some of them were nothing more than shells and clearly no one lived in them. If this were New York, we would be moving into the poorer and much rougher areas, where illegal activities transpired on every street corner, and even more hidden away in the underground.

  The ogre and Kian stopped again, right out front of an old, rickety looking fence. I dived behind some broken timber as both of them scanned the area, then lifted up some of the fencing and crawled under. I gave them a few seconds to move before I followed, finding the tear in the chain easily and sliding under. The cloak protected me pretty well; the few scratches I got were not important. I could barely see the large shadows of the men now, so I hurried across the uneven and rocky ground, trying my best not to stumble in the dark. I got close enough to see the ogre lift a panel on what looked like a broken-down warehouse, then they disappeared inside.

  In normal circumstances, I would have hesitated to follow. It was the perfect ambush situation and I had no idea if they knew I was behind them. But trusting my gut again, I believed Kade’s brother was on our side. With that in mind, I found myself lifting the panel and rolling in underneath as it closed. I was on my feet in a second, crouching low to prepare myself for an attack.

  I found myself in a small, storage style room with a few broken tools littered around the floor. There was no one around. I could hear lots of noise now that I was inside, which was odd, because not a single sound had penetrated to the outside. I opened the door on the far wall and entered a long hall. Following the jeering and the lights, I came upon a large crowd of fae. It looked to be at least twenty deep, and I had no clear view of what they were all crowding around. From the back, I was getting a very underground fight ring vibe. The dark shadowy expressions, the shouts and catcalling, the tickets some of them seemed to be holding – not to mention bags of clinking coins being passed around. There looked to be mostly men in here, but there were women too, so I wouldn’t immediately stand out.

  I could no longer see Kian or the ogre, but that didn’t matter, I was here for Kade, and the slight tingling of mecca on my skin had me thinking – and hoping – he was somewhere in this building. Pushing through the crowd, no one paid the slightest attention to me. All of their gazes were locked on whatever they were circled around. My heart was pounding hard, energy swirling inside of me. I was almost afraid to look into the center of the room, but I would not be a coward today. Kade would be fine and I would help Kian get him out of here. That was my mantra, and it was getting me through.

  Once I made it through a bunch of huge, and definitely not high-fae creatures, I could finally see what had this group so enthralled. Holy mother of shifters. My guess had been half right, it looked like a fight ring, but not like I had imagined. The ring was more semi-circular, the far side a flat wall, and against it were five chained fae. Two of them were highborn fae, shriveled and weak looking, one was a goblin, another an ogre, and the last one I had no name for. It was frankly weird and scary looking, grotesque: two heads, multiple eyes, gray skin, and lots of tufts of hair where hair should not be.

  I was just wondering why they were tied up when a huge roar started in the crowd and the clanking of doors and chains had everyone’s attention shifting to the right. I turned with them, and thankfully my gasp was drowned out in a loud outcry. Two ogres talking close by caught my attention.

  “Best buy Gorbon has made. He’s undefeated in three fights so far. He’s a monster.”

  They were talking about Kade. My Kade. Who was standing shirtless on the far side of the semi-circle. His hands were bound by chains as he entered, but were being removed by a three foot tall, fairy-looking creature, and then she was out of the ring in a zip, so fast the eye couldn’t track her. Pressing myself even closer to the edge of the barbed wire fence, which separated the crowd from the fighters, I drank in the sight of Kade. He was wearing nothing but a pair of cutoff shorts, his chest and body shiny with sweat or oil as his large muscles trembled. His eyes were dark and shimmering as he stalked forward.

  I wanted to scream, to cry out and let him know that I was here. I wanted to call forth the mecca and blast everyone in this room to pieces, but none of that would do any good. The queen and her guards would rain down on us and we would never get away. We had to remain undetected. Somehow I needed to alert Kade to my presence, and then we had to get out of here and to the eastern gate before sunrise so we could escape.

  Before I could hatch any type of plan, the cuffs clanked open on the gnarly looking creature with two heads. Another blip of sparkle showed the fairy darting off again. She was insanely fast, which made sense when you considered her current occupation.

  Kade…

  I tried to reach him through our bond again, but nothing happened. Damn that winter queen. I really wanted to kill her.

  The crowd roared. Money was being tossed about, tickets waved in the air. Finally, when the crowd settled I did the only thing I could think of. In the complete silence I pulled my hood back the tiniest bit and shouted, “Kick his ass!”

  At my taunt, the crowd lost it again, cheering, pumping their fists in the air, but Kade’s entire face tightened and he turned to search the crowd. I had hoped he would recognize my voice, and thankfully it looked like he had. As our eyes met, the expression on his face was a combination of relief, anger, and this softness that he only ever showed around me. I gave him a single head nod, fighting back tears. He returned my gesture, before all of those soft emotions disappeared. If I didn’t know Kade, I would have feared him in that moment. He turned then to face the creature and I quickly slipped my hood back up.

  The sight of me seemed to give Kade a renewed strength. He clenched his fists and advanced on the beast. The thing’s two heads were swaying, grunts coming from somewhere, even though I couldn’t see anything I would call a mouth. A bell dinged from behind me and Kade tipped his head back and roared. It was his bear’s roar, and it made my wolf howl deep inside of me.

  Chapter Ten

  North, south, east, west. Which way home is the best?

  I pushed even closer to the front, knowing that if it looked like Kade was losing the fight I would call forth the mecca and blast the two-headed monster to bits, consequences be damned. The beast reared up on hidden hind legs like a horse ready to charge, and Kade wasted no time with fanciness. He just dug his feet into the ground and charged, running right at it. I knew Kade’s fighting style by now, which gave me a semblance of reassurance that he would be perfectly fine, but still, as I watched my mate slam into the beast, knocking him backwards with the force of his blows, my heart was definitely in my throat.

  The beast recovered quickly, striking back at Kade with one of his taloned hands, opening a gash on Kade’s shoulder, but he barely flinched. He leaped forward, grabbed one of the beast’s heads in his large hands, and squeezed as hard as he could, twisting it around. The beast clawed at his back but my mate didn’t seem to notice. With a loud crack, the head Kade held flopped to the side. The beast lashed out, kicking the shifter off of him, and Kade slammed onto his bleeding back, sliding across the dirt floor.

  Before I could panic, Kade did a kick up and was on his feet, a set of handcuff chains dangling in his hands. The crowd roared. I guess
there were no rules to these fights, and you could use anything around you as a weapon. As the beast charged him, Kade tightened the chain between two hands and pivoted to the left, swinging over the beast’s back and wrapping the chain around its one still-functioning throat. Kade pulled the chain taut and the beast’s eyes bugged out, its face going purple. Finally, after an agonizing minute, the fae creature dropped dead to the ground and the crowd roared.

  Kade was hurt. His back was bleeding and full of dirt, but he stood strong, glaring at everyone in the room, his eyes only softening when they fell on me. The next fight was quicker, and while the goblin seemed to have some healing and regenerative powers, there was nothing that could bring an opponent back from having their head and spine ripped from their body, which looked to be Kade’s preferred way to end a fight. I was starting to feel positive about his odds. Only three to fight left, and then I assumed they would let him sleep or rest or whatever, and we would sneak out.

  That’s when the fairy girl looked at the crowd and called for them to quiet down.

  “Let’s make this interesting, shall we?” she yelled into the room, and the crowd went wild. I leaned forward, wondering what she was going to do. She flitted across the arena and the chains clanked off the three remaining fighters. A highborn fae man, a highborn female, and an ogre. Crap. Kade was strong, but he was injured and three against one were not odds I wanted on my mate.

  The highborn woman looked the fiercest of all the fighters, outside of the guy with two-heads who was now dead. She did look a bit emaciated, but still tough. She wore all black, including a leather corset and canvas pants. Not to mention her thin arms were littered with rock hard muscle. This wasn’t her first fight; she knew how to survive.

  She looked up at the fairy and said, “Anything goes?”

  The fairy nodded. The bell hadn’t rung yet, but in one quick movement the female highborn did a roll and popped up next to Kade. My mate tensed, ready for anything, but the girl just gave him a sidelong glance and extended her hand. “Partners?”

  He paused, staring her down for a beat, before a grin slowly lifted one side of his lips and he took her offered hand. She was smart, picking the strongest and partnering with him. I wondered if in the end the fairy would force them to fight one another. Something we would deal with if it happened. The moment Kade and Badass chick’s hands met, the crowd roared. They liked the idea of this team up. The fairy wasted no more time now, and rang the bell to start the round.

  Kade and the female highborn moved together as one, almost as if they had been fighting as a team for many years. The pair they faced looked slightly nervous, but didn’t hesitate to step forward either. When there was about three feet between the four of them, Kade and his partner quickly split apart so that they could come in from either side. I had been right about this badass chick, she was trained, and fast. She had her opponent on the ground in a headlock within seconds, which left Kade to deal with the ogre.

  My mate flicked one quick glance in my direction, as if he just needed to reassure himself that I was still there, that I was still safe, and then he launched himself at his massive foe. The ogre was strong but slow, which allowed Kade to get in a few heavy hits before he received one back himself into the chest. With a bearlike roar, his body started to shift into his in-between form, which gave him some of the strength and speed of his full bear form.

  With both hands, he latched onto the ogre’s arm and wrenched it to the right. At the same time he released his left handhold and smashed that fist into the fae’s face. He then rained down as many hard and heavy blows as he could manage. The ogre got a few of his own in as well, but he was vastly outpowered by the bear king.

  It didn’t take long before Kade and his fae partner had the other two either knocked out cold on the ground or dead. It was hard to tell. The dirt had turned to mud with the blood, and it made my stomach twist. Bits and pieces of fae were scattered around the ring, and I wondered how many had died down there for the entertainment of others.

  I knew whatever happened next would determine how we got out of here. My mate would never kill a female unless it was life or death, and he would especially not want to kill this one after they had just fought to save each other’s lives. If the fairy called for them to fight each other, I was going to have to unleash the mecca and hope for the best. We would have to run, and running would probably entail the queen’s guard on our heels.

  My hands stilled in the air, heat burning below the surface, as the fairy took center stage, her gossamer wings flitting about.

  She seemed to consider the two before her. “What do you say? Another fight?” she asked, and the crowd roared, though less than they had earlier. The fairy seemed to consider Kade and the female again. “Or shall we let them get some sleep and round up a new group tomorrow? Start two man fights from now on? That was rather fun to see.”

  This time the crowd’s roar was deafening; the walls shook as it thundered on. All I could think was, Thank the gods.

  Within moments, the crowd began to disperse. The fairy waved her hands, producing some magical blue chains, which were then looped around Kade and the female’s hands. They were then ushered toward the back exit. I was just figuring out what to do when a heavy arm dropped around my shoulders.

  I was already swiveling to fight when a familiar voice halted me. “Hey, pretty lady! Wanna go home with me?” Kian’s strong voice slurred close to my ear and I saw the drunken ogre leering at us with a perverted look. He then chuckled and waved to Kian, before disappearing through the front exit with the crowd.

  The moment the last of the crowd deserted the fighting area, Kian dropped his arm and his act. His next words were low and clipped. “I’m glad to see you got out, but you were supposed to meet my wife.” It wasn’t necessarily a scolding tone, but he sounded concerned.

  I gave him a look, before saying dryly, “Would you leave your mate? Trust someone you never met to save them?”

  His broad features tightened. He looked so much like Kade it was uncanny. I had no doubt that these two were brothers, despite Kian being slightly shorter and less bulky, his hair sandy brown rather than the deep rich dark brown of Kade’s, his eyes a light mossy green.

  He just shook his head. “No. I wouldn’t.” With that he charged for the door the fairy had gone through and I was right on his heels.

  The fairy was either extremely powerful or far too complacent, because she was leading the two fighters out alone. I could see a cart in the distance, waiting in the shadows, which I suspected was the transport to take the fighters back to their prison. We closed in on them. Kian was almost as fast as his brother and just as stealthy as he stuck to the shadows. I remained right on his tail.

  Kade! My mental shout went unheard again.

  The fairy’s pace really picked up, and whatever magic she was using hurried Kade and the female fae along as well, but thankfully it looked like we would reach them before they reached the cart.

  I called mecca to myself. It filtered up through me, bringing with it some of my newly discovered fae powers. Still wary about what these powers would produce, I hesitated to use them in such close proximity to my mate. Still, we would have to do something quickly. Once they reached the cart, there was no knowing where they were going or what powers the fairy might have to contain them.

  Kian gave me the perfect opportunity when he stepped out of the shadows and started running like a lunatic, waving his hands in the air toward the trio. He was acting a combination of drunk and crazy now, which had the fairy pausing. She even took a step away from her prisoners. This gave me the chance to aim my energy at the cuffs binding my mate and the female fae.

  Please let this work. Please let this work.

  I gently let the mecca trickle free. The energy glided in a beaming arc from me, and instead of being its usual rich purple color, it was now a deep luminescent midnight, as if the purple were laced through with a dark blue, topped off with some shiny sparkles. The fai
ry, still staring at Kian, didn’t even notice as the cuffs fell away from her prisoners.

  Looked like my earlier question was answered – complacent and not powerful.

  I ran as fast as I could toward Kade, stumbling over the uneven ground. My eyesight was still far too good for a normal shifter, but I was moving so fast a lot of that was negated. The moment Kade was free, he started moving toward me, as if he had known I was there all along. The female fae didn’t stick around. She gave the retreating bear shifter a wave of thanks, and disappeared into the shadows.

  “Ari!” Kade’s voice was rough as he scooped me up into his arms. I clung to him with intensity. The need I had to touch and be close to him after not knowing if he was okay was stronger than anything I’d ever experienced. Our lips touched briefly, just a single silken slide of his mouth, and then he pulled away.

  “How did you get free? Do you have a plan to get out of here?” His hands still cupped my face and were partly tangled in my hair. “Who helped you?”

  I swallowed hard, the words I wanted to say stuck in my throat. We had no time, the fairy would be back in seconds; Kade’s brother could only do so much to keep her distracted.

  “Kade, your brother is not dead.” Kade went rigid as swirling fire burned in his copper eyes. I quickly added, “He helped me, and he’s arranged a way out of the Winter Court for us. He’s alive.”

  Kian let out a bellowing roar, and both Kade and I swung our gazes to find him curled over, batting his hands in the air, trying to ward off a fairy attack. Kade, who hadn’t appeared to be breathing until this point, threw me over his shoulder in one swift movement and charged toward his brother.

  Now, I hated being carried. Always had, even as a child. But I understood that in this moment Kade’s bear was in charge, not him. He wanted to get to his brother, his newly rediscovered brother, but he would not leave me for another second. Bonded mateship was not to be messed around with, and I remembered that feeling when I couldn’t talk to Kade, not knowing if he was okay. So I was not at all surprised that he was keeping me close.