by River Starr
Frost leaned forward as if she were going to tell me some kind of secret. Instead, the motion showed off her lowcut top to Titus, who didn’t appear interested. She harrumphed. “Doesn’t matter? It does to me. I’m curious what everyone did! You guys are no fun.”
“I was framed,” Titus said, completely blowing my assumptions out of the window. I’d thought it wouldn’t be safe to admit to not doing a crime. Maybe I’d been wrong. But then his lips curled, his face reddened, and the scales on his body lit like the last embers of a fire, which only seemed to piss him off more. As if under normal access to magic, his scales actually did light on fire. “And I will escape and kill every last person responsible for framing me.”
I shied away from his anger, even as warmth emanated from his lightly glowing scales. The heat rolled across my arms and thin, wet top like an incoming fog. Involuntarily, I found myself attempting to scoot closer to Titus despite everything about this situation.
A low growl came from Dax.
Frost inclined her head toward him. “Yes, you’re next. What’d you do?”
Dax’s shoulders tightened and he strained against his restraints. “This isn’t a human’s summer camp.”
Frost’s mouth dropped open with absolute shock of the sarcastic variety. “It’s not? Dammit.”
“You know who I am,” Dax said, his tone low. “Everyone on this transport knows the blood empire I run in Cornwall.”
Frost grinned, but there was a dark tilt to it. “I thought it might be you, the self-proclaimed ‘King of Vampires.’” She laughed. “As if. You’re just a small fry compared to others in the world.”
“And yet I can feed or destroy all of Cornwall within a matter of days if I so wished it,” Dax said coolly.
“Gods,” I said under my breath. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing right now, or who I was in this transport with. I’d known about the vampiric empire in Cornwall. Everyone did. But I’d never seen Dax’s face before in relation to his empire.
“They can’t save you here, Nyx.” Frost’s tone was more serious now. “I heard someone killed two sea fae nobles in their own home a few days ago. Someone with access to the building in the undersea city.”
I gulped and fought to keep my expression neutral. Frost meant the new city, Alexandria. The capitol of the sea court. “Really?”
She nodded, studying my expression. “That means someone who can breathe underwater did it, or they wouldn’t have made it down there. Unless they knew a teleportation sigil and had access to a runic teleportation circle.”
The fae used the teleportation circles to get between their cities. I unfortunately did not know any rune combinations, or maybe Eos would have guided us out of that house in time. Instead, I’d had to hitch a ride from a full-blooded sea fae and, well, they’d ditched me as soon as we had arrived at Alexandria.
Eos, why did you have to kill those nobles?
As always, there was no response. I wasn’t even sure she heard and experienced my day-to-day activities. The gods knew I never remembered her evening ones.
A phantom pain tugged at my ribs. Before preparing me for travel to Atlantis Prison, the Queen of the Sea Fae Kingdom had allowed me to be healed… mostly. If I moved too quickly or the wrong way, it still felt like something was broken.
I pursed my lips together. “I’m afraid I haven’t heard about that.”
Frost looked down her nose at me. “I only bring it up because someone who did something like that, especially to the sea court, should be lauded over.”
I couldn’t help the tiniest lift of my eyebrow. “And why is that?”
As a winter fae, it wasn’t like her court was up in arms against the sea court. Winter spent too much time fighting with Summer to notice us in the ocean, except on certain occasions.
Frost’s lips curled in a deadly smile. “Because the sea court has committed its fair share of crimes in the name of peace, and I’ve lost my family to their actions. That’s why I spied and aided criminals over the border.”
“Until you were caught,” Dax pointed out. He still looked as relaxed as ever, as if he were in the middle of his vampire lair surrounded by consorts waiting to bare their necks for him. A hungry glint now shone in his eyes, triggering an unsettling thought in my head.
Did Atlantis Prison accommodate a vampire’s… blood diet?
Frost finally sat back. “Until I was caught, yes. Nyx, if you did do it—and I’m not saying you did—you’d be very helpful.” She dropped her voice to a whisper as my heartbeat picked up again. Dax smiled. “If you didn’t swim to the sea court to murder those nobles, if you went by teleportation circle instead, you may know the runes necessary to escape Atlantis Prison. When the time is right, of course.”
We weren’t even inside cells yet and already Frost was sitting here legitimately planning her escape—our escape. Who was more foolish? Her for hoping she’d ever get out, or me for not also trying to plan an exit?
“I said be quiet!” the guard shouted again.
Surely, he couldn’t hear our exact words. Just that we were talking. Gods. What if they already heard us planning an escape?
“It doesn’t matter,” Titus said to both Frost and the guard as the glowing on his arms faded away. I silently mourned the loss of the small heat source. “None of us have our full magic down here, and as soon as we cross that threshold, there’s only one way out. Besides, not all prisons have cells.”
Frost shot a sarcastic glance his way. “Weren’t you just grumbling about how you need to escape because someone framed you? How you’re getting out no matter what?”
Titus stared at her with a neutral expression, as if he couldn’t deign to answer her.
Frost sighed. “There’s a way out. There’s always a way out.”
Then, as if by miracle, the magic-infused coral transport lurched as we were struck from the side.
I fell forward, my hands still bound behind me. Titus careened forward too, his scales lit up once more like embers in a fire. I briefly caught sight of Frost trying to catch him, but Titus was easily almost twice her size. Together, they crashed into the opposite side of the transport.
I had no such luck. With no way to stop myself, all I could do was close my eyes as I fell face-first against Dax’s cold chest. He chuckled, but, with his own hands bound, he couldn’t do much else.
“This isn’t funny.”
He peered down at me. “It kind of is. If you wanted me, you didn’t have to throw yourself at me, Nyx.” The way he said my name sent a cool chill spiraling down my back. Or maybe it was simply the added chill from Dax’s ice-cold skin.
“What was that?” Frost asked, fear and hope mixing in her voice.
On the other side of the dividing wall, the fae guarding us shouted. One barked orders above the rest, his gravelly voice cutting through the din.
“An attack?” Titus managed to get one muscular leg beneath him and force himself upward with a little push from Frost, who winked at him.
I squirmed against Dax, trying to gain footing for myself.
Dax’s chuckling went away and he tensed. “May not want to do that, love.”
I lifted my gaze to him, questioning, but on the smirk twisting his features into a mischievously playful expression, I realized my squirming was too close to his groin. “I hate this.”
I wanted off this transport and away from the Institute. I didn’t belong amongst these criminals. The worst I’d done of my own will was theft. Not murder. Not trafficking or spying or whatever else landed one in the sea fae’s most highly guarded prison.
Dax’s face pained for a single fleeting moment at my words. I might have missed it entirely if I hadn’t been looking directly at him. It was as if my utterance had hurt him, even though it should have been an obvious sentiment.
Of course I would hate this situation. What was there to like about being crammed inside a tiny transport on the way to prison, soaking wet, and pressed against an ice-cold vampire while b
eing attacked?
The transport lurched again, backward this time as we were hit from the other side. I rocked back, slamming my head against the ceiling as the four of us were tossed about. Pain exploded along my skull as I slid down the wall to my knees, partially bent over one of the benches. The world swirled in darkness around me, shadows dancing at the edges of my vision.
“No…” I whispered as unconsciousness came for me.
And control was lost.
4
Eos
I blinked awake. Agony split my head in two, and still, I smiled because I was free. It was my turn to exist.
Thank you, Nyx, for this opportunity.
But where had we found ourselves? My cheek laid against a bench and my knees pressed against a hard, cold, grated floor. I was bent over the bench and my clothes pressed cool and wet against my chest. And my hands…
I tried to lift them, but my numb wrists had been bound. Oh, Nyx. She must not have escaped in time, and now we were caught.
I shifted, trying to get a leg under me to stand. It wasn’t the most graceful move in the world, but finally, I stood and took in the room around me. A red dragon shifter, a beautiful winter fae—and a vampire whose very presence sent my heart beating into overtime.
I smiled warmly at Dax. Wherever we were, it didn’t matter. With Dax by my side, I’d always get out free. Except, apparently, for assassinating those sea fae nobles.
“Where are we?” I asked as I crossed the grated floor to him.
For a moment, Dax’s curious expression held a hint of curiosity. “What? You know exactly where we are.”
The room rocked as a crash sounded, followed by tiny water spurts cracking through the walls.
“That’s not good,” the winter fae commented.
“Rebels!” one of the fae guards shouted loud enough to hear through the coral-encrusted wall.
I grinned. My faithful were here to save me, and I hadn’t even needed to organize my own rescue. How did they know where I was? It didn’t matter. My faithful were here to rescue me, their queen and sole heir to the Atlantean throne.
Dax grabbed my arm. “What the hell is going on with you?”
I leaned in to him and took in his ocean scent. Dax had built his empire’s castle right on the coast, and he’d lauded over the area for decades now. His power, and his ocean scent, drove me wild with thoughts of my home beneath the waves. “I’ve missed you.”
His brow furrowed. “What game are you playing?”
I opened my mouth to reply but the transport rocked again, sending me sailing backward. Dax reached out to grab me but missed. A new agony splintered across my head as it connected with the wall of the transport. Stars danced along the edges of my vision.
“No…” My freedom had been so short-lived. It couldn’t be over this soon.
Nyx, let me be free.
But darkness swallowed me once more and my consciousness sifted into nothingness.
5
Nyx
I came to again propped up against a wall of the transport, held there by Frost as the only member of the group with her hands bound in front of her. She’d pinned my shoulders with both of her hands and searched my eyes with a ferocity that set me immediately on edge. I tried to move, to get away from her, but my strength hadn’t yet returned and my shoes sloshed around on the ground, slipping in the water.
Wait. Water?
“What happened?” I’d lost time, that much was evident by the two inches of water now filling the bottom of the transport.
“We need your magic,” Dax said as he looked at me over Frost’s shoulder. “Are you okay? You’re acting strange.”
What the hell? How would he know what was strange for me? Unless Eos had come out while I was unconscious… Gods. Had the others noticed the change? Had Eos tried talking to them? Anxiety bloomed in my chest, making my heart race even faster. My pulse pounded in my ears as Dax repeated his statement.
“My magic is bound,” I said.
They all knew that. All of our magic was muted right now. Hidden away just out of reach.
Dax strained against his bindings, his neck muscles bulging with the effort. “We need to help the guards. They can’t handle this.”
Titus spun to him, tiny embers burning inside his eyes. “Are you kidding me? They’re taking us to prison. Why should we help them?”
“Gotta agree with fire boy here,” Frost said, thumbing in Titus’s direction. “If anything, we should be helping the rebels destroy this transport so we can escape.”
“Rebels?” I asked.
Frost nodded. “It’s the only thing that makes sense. They hate what the remains of Atlantis have become. I would know—I’ve worked with several of them.”
Deadpan, I looked to Frost and Titus. “That still doesn’t mean we can escape. Do either of you understand exactly how much water stands between us and the surface? I can breathe underwater, and Dax doesn’t need to. But you two are screwed, and that’s not even considering the pressure at this depth. We won’t make it, not without our magic—which, last I checked, is bound inside us.”
Before, I could have most likely made it to the surface, even with some issues. With a shield of magic around me and my innate ability to breathe underwater as a sea fae, the mild depth through which we currently moved wasn’t an issue. Farther down, absolutely. But right now, with my magic bound and the chance that Eos could appear at any second and screw things up like she’d almost just done, we couldn’t risk it.
We’d have to help the guards fight against the sea fae rebels.
“What do they even want with a transport ship?” Titus hissed. His scales glowed brighter now, more like the fire I knew he could control. Like all dragons could. Dragonfire almost burned bright enough to fit what I needed to cure my sister… almost. But not quite. Only phoenix fire could do that.
This, at least, I had an answer for. “They’re sea fae rebels. They hate the way Atlantis’s name has been used regarding the Institute. They think it’s an affront to the ancient fae society that came before.”
“Exactly what I just said. The ancient fae got themselves destroyed,” Frost said. “Just like—no offense, Nyx—I hope the current sea fae kingdom does.”
I bit my lip, hesitating to answer. The truth was: I didn’t care what happened to the sea fae in Alexandria, either. I’d been raised on the surface in Cornwall. I’d only been to Alexandria once, when I’d snuck my way in, hoping to steal valuables and find the phoenix shifter they were rumored to be keeping. Instead, my mission had failed, and I’d woken up after Eos had murdered the nobles I’d intended to steal from. On a whole, I thought everyone in Alexandria was sadistic, stoic, and pretentious as hell. I hated those monsters. But I also didn’t want to wish death on hundreds of otherwise innocent fae because of a difference in lifestyle.
“Think the rebels will help us escape, then?” Titus asked, maybe a little too hopefully.
“Doubtful.” I toed the water collecting along the bottom of the transport. “The magic keeping this thing together will only hold water out for so long. We have to help them if we don’t want to drown. Dax is right.” As much as I hated to admit it.
Frost gave me a withering stare. “You think it’ll earn us brownie points or something?”
“Likely not.”
Titus stepped toward us. His scales had lost some of their glow. “It still doesn’t change the fact that we’re unable to use magic. If we’re going to do anything, the rebels will have to board first.”
Frost pointed to Titus. “Exactly. Don’t think they’re planning on doing that.”
Dax’s gaze burned into me. I tried to ignore it, to not look the vampire in the eyes, but I could feel every moment his eyes were on me like some extrasensory, fire-hot awareness licking over my skin. “You can do enough, even bound.”
I’d cross my arms if I could. Instead, I stood there unblinking. “I’m not as powerful as you think.”
“You’re a sea
fae.”
“Half-fae. One who doesn’t use her magic.”
“Not as much as her thieving skills,” Frost interjected, a smirk on her lips.
How did Frost know so much about me?
The transport rocked again. This time, cracks sprouted along the wall separating us from the transport guards.
My ice-blue eyes narrowed. “Seems like you spy on a lot of people, then?”
“What?” Frost steadied herself by clasping on to Titus’s muscular shoulders. He grunted as she did so, his scales warming again into embers that sent steam rising beneath Frost’s too-pale fingers. Fire and snow. “Can you really fault me for wanting to know whom I’d end up in prison with?”
I stepped toward her, although I doubted with my hands bound it was as aggressive a motion as I was looking for. “Stay out of my business.”
“Not to break up the argument,” Titus said as he shrugged off Frost’s hold. “But we’re running out of time either way.” He didn’t sound too torn up about it.
The wall between us and the guards completely crumbled then, revealing two sea fae guards in full uniform looking at the motley crew of dangerous criminals they were transporting to the Institute. Both had the white-blond hair of most sea fae, along with a soldier’s build. Tall, bulky, and normally stoic. Except for right now when their eyes grew wide with shock.
“Get back in your seats!” the first one cried as they pointed a trident toward us. The tips of the trident glowed with blue magic.
I stepped back out of reflex. The last and only time I’d seen tridents brandished was when the guards had found me in the aftermath of Eos’s rampage.
Dax tracked my movement, a curious and almost disappointed look on his face. His reactions to me made no sense. I wanted them to, though, so I could understand what he was thinking.
Frost scoffed and strutted toward them without fear. “We’re going to help you assholes.”