Finally Faeling: An Eight Wings Academy Novel: Book Three

by Akeroyd, Serena

  “No plastic surgeon required,” I murmured, shooting the other woman a wary look. Though she was evidently a bitch, I couldn’t exactly blame her—not with the way Carlos was gawping at Abuela. Sol, any woman in their right mind would have been jealous.

  Raising the palm of my hand, I did as I’d shown my Virgo and family. A small vortex appeared as I called on the elements, both natural and chemical, and when a small mouse appeared on my palm, the dead silence lasted a few moments before someone gasped and swooned.

  Literally fucking swooned.

  “Either she’s scared of mice or you just stunned them silent,” Dan commented dryly.

  When no one replied, when the entire room carried on staring at us, mouths agape, I ran my finger down the mouse’s back.

  “Let me guess, you like mice too?” Seph groused.

  I shot him a wry grin. “And rats. They make the best pets.”

  He shuddered. “Next it will be snakes.”

  “Of course it won’t,” I told him cheerfully. “They eat mice. It would be weird to like predator and prey.”

  “Would it? That’s the weird part of this conversation?” Matt queried, his lips twisting in a sardonic smirk.

  “Plenty more where that’s come from. Seph, you might want to take the time to run away now. You know, what with the fact I haven’t had a chance to—”

  His eyes darkened. “We will soon enough.”

  Heat swirled inside me, and the hunger that had been staved off thus far reasserted itself with a vengeance.

  He knew too. There was a cocky slant to his mouth as he smiled at me. “Later,” he promised.

  Ohhh boy, there was a definite reason this shit was called the Rut.

  Someone cleared their throat, reminding me that we were in the middle of a political organization’s office in downtown Havana.

  I turned my attention that way and, dipping down into a crouch, I allowed the mouse to run off—what was one more in this vermin-infested place—as I murmured, “You have questions, of that I’m sure, but I have no answers, only a means to an end.”

  Carlos tipped his head to the side. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, I have no idea how I can do what I do. I’m tapping into a vein of magic that is both of this Earth and not.” I shrugged. “But—”

  “Sol and Gaia,” one of the women breathed.

  The notion was quaint, but everyone knew our deities weren’t really like that. They were like the Christian God. They didn’t tend to get involved in our shit, and their names were mostly invoked in blasphemy.

  Regular religious stuff.

  I shook my head. “I doubt it,” I said dryly, even if her statement did ring along the same lines as my great-great-grandmother’s vision. A notion that had a shiver rushing down my spine.

  Hadn’t I thought it myself?

  That these gifts were Gaia-granted?

  But I’d meant it as a kind of phrase. Here, now, it felt like more than that.

  Like maybe Gaia really was getting involved in my life. Sol, too.

  “Sol is not of this earth while Gaia is purely from this realm,” Josefa muttered, her tone still pissed, but I sensed her curiosity and her desire to know more. That edged over her jealousy where my grandmother was concerned.

  “We don’t even celebrate them anymore—”

  “They do in the Conclave,” my abuela murmured. “You’ve never led a Conclave-centric life, Riel. For a reason.”

  “The God and Goddess are central to everything we do,” a woman chimed in.

  Well, I’d lived without them this long. I didn’t intend on changing stuff now. Arrogant, sure, but Sol, it was going to take more than one conversation to turn me into a rabid believer.

  Seph’s hand cupped my elbow. “We don’t practice like the witches do.”

  “No, you just steal the benefits of our practice,” Josefa snarled, her eyes on my Virgos’ wings.

  “What does she mean?” I asked my grandmother.

  “The quarterly rites occur at equinoxes and solstices. During those rites, we celebrate Sol and Gaia—”

  “She’s never attended one?” Carlos inquired, his brow puckered.

  “No, because we were too busy trying to escape you,” she snapped.

  Now that I thought about it, this ramshackle office didn’t feel particularly threatening. And yet, my grandmother had helped stave off the Bay of Pigs’ invasion… so her fear would be justified. It wasn’t like she was afraid of a fight. Something didn’t add up.

  Then, I almost had to laugh, because what else was fucking new?

  Carlos narrowed his eyes at her. “If we’re the enemy, why are you here? With more of our enemy?”

  My grandmother sniffed. “After Riel touched the lodestone, her gifts have developed to the extent where she thinks she can help the cause.”

  “The cause?” Carlos questioned with a huff. “Érase una vez, it was our cause, Gabriella.”

  “Once upon a time,” she clucked, “many things held true, but they don’t anymore, and you know it, Carlos,” she finished barking at him.

  Carlos’s attention swerved to Linford whom he studied with a disgust that was evident in every move he made—from the sneer on his lips to the malicious narrowing of his eyes. It made me very grateful for the magical net I’d cast around us.

  Grandmother hadn’t said anything about Carlos being powerful, but I had to assume there was a reason for her running scared all these years, and while Seph had indicated that Josefa was the leader of this ragtag bunch, he definitely had some power, so it fit that he was the one she’d technically been avoiding. Well, ones. I’d hazard a guess she’d been avoiding Josefa too.

  “How can you help?” Josefa demanded, her focus drifting over all of us as she honed in on what truly mattered here.

  “I have to believe I can do what I can for a reason,” I murmured, and even though I felt like a pretentious prick for saying it, I knew I was right.

  Why was all this happening if there wasn’t a point to it?

  We didn’t have to understand our destiny to be on the path to fulfilling it, and even if I failed, at least I tried. That had to count for something, right?

  “You give life and can take it away?” Josefa asked, stepping nearer to us, but halting at the closest desk so she could lean back against it. When she settled in, I could tell she was here for the long haul.

  “I can. There are other things I can do too, and I’d like to use them as leverage for our gain.”

  “You’re a witch born Fae.” Her gaze drifted over to my men. “With Virgo. Just like your grandmother, your alliance has shifted.”

  “Didn’t stop you from trying to seek me out at the Academy or just a few hours ago,” I retorted. “Alliances can be swayed, can’t they?”

  “We didn’t know about the Virgo.” Josefa shook her head. “That changes things.”

  Abuela reached over and grabbed my hand. “Usually, it does,” she agreed. “Josefa is right to query this.”

  I shrugged. “I’m sure she is, but I’m a little bit different, aren’t I? So, even though you’ve wanted me on your side for years, because I have Virgo, you’re no longer interested in me?”

  Carlos grunted. “Isn’t the question why you’re interested in us? It’s suspect that you’d switch allegiances when you have four Fae in that protective circle.”

  “They’re in as much danger as I am,” I reasoned easily. “Look, I don’t have to help the cause, but all I know is that witches have always had a shit time of it. I didn’t have to be an integral part of the Conclave to know that, and the second I learned how the Fae mine magic, I was agitated from the very beginning.”

  “Agitated?” Josefa huffed.

  “You know full well that if the magic isn’t drained, you start to deteriorate,” Linford snapped, his control snapping too by the sounds of it. “You make it sound like we’re beasts for helping you out when—”

  I reached around my grandmother to grab his
arm. “You’re not helping.”

  He huffed. “While my kind do many things that are wrong, and I will attest to that, the mining was started with good intentions.”

  “And we all know the path to hell is paved with those,” Josefa countered easily, but I could tell she was still interested in what we had to say, and considering my glow was getting stronger and was starting to pulse, I figured that someone here was trying to attack my magic while she kept our focus averted.

  Sneaky SOBs.

  When I felt one of my men brush up against me from the back, I settled into them, unsurprised that it was Matthew.

  “The one near the office. The male,” he murmured softly in my ear, covering it with a soft kiss to my temple.

  Considering he’d have used Carlos’ name, I scanned the back of the room where the office Carlos had stormed out of was situated. Seeing a male standing there, his eyes closed as he leaned back against the wall, his feet crossed at the ankle, I focused on him.

  The pose looked relaxed. Had he been on a break from work, I’d have believed it, but as six people had just popped in out of nowhere, six men and women who were technically this group’s enemies, it didn’t exactly seem appropriate for him to be having a siesta right about now.

  Calling on the silvery metal within my manifested magic, I did as I had in the storm. The little projectiles gathered, levitating above my fingertips. Instead of hurling them, I raised my hand to my mouth and blew them forward.

  They reacted as though they’d been slingshotted across the room. Parting into a pattern of their own design, they pinged into the wall behind the man, leaving holes around him that outlined his head. It reminded me of a knife-throwing act I’d seen on TV.

  If shit truly went to shit, maybe I’d make a fortune on the carnival-front.

  He jerked in shock, his eyes wide, but when he couldn’t move away, I smiled.

  “Que hiciste?” he snarled at me.

  “Only what you deserved,” I replied to his demand to know what I’d done. “Don’t try to attack me and I won’t attack you.”

  “I have never seen any magic like that in my life,” Josefa whispered, and even though I knew creating the mouse had shaken her, somehow, what I’d just done had truly rocked her world.

  “The lodestone changed us,” I told her simply. “It’s what happened to your witches. I used their wind to trap some Fae who were intent on attacking me. That’s how you know we’re not enemies…”

  “The enemies of my enemies are my friend,” Carlos stated grimly, his focus on the little holes in the damp plasterboard around the other male witch’s head. “What have you done to him?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know?” Josefa repeated, a scowl marring her forehead. “How can you not know?”

  “I just don’t.” I shrugged. “It’s instinctive.”

  “Bull,” she retorted. “Magic doesn’t work that way.”

  “Magic doesn’t create life or take it either. Magic doesn’t make old men and women young again, nor can it make things invisible.” My grandmother shrugged. “You know as well as I do that the lodestones are beyond our understanding.”

  “That’s why the Fae hoard them for themselves,” Linford inserted easily. “They wish to keep all the interesting new talents for their own. In this instance, they were late to the party.”

  “You got them all?” Carlos asked, his attention still on the witch who was pinned in place.

  “We did,” I replied, “and now they’re after us, and they’re not going to stop until they have us. I don’t want that. I don’t intend to be on the run for the rest of my life, and I know that if I have to, I’ll need to fight. I don’t want that either.”

  “If you don’t want war, then you want peace,” Josefa murmured, “but even in politics, that isn’t simple.”

  “No, but they don’t have our leverage.” Nor did they have a trick up their sleeve like I did.

  “You want our help?”

  “I need your manpower. Grandmother says you have groups in every country.”

  “We do,” Josefa stated proudly. “But we’re the original group. Every other is a sister to this one.”

  “Are you just terrorists or do you want reform?” I probed softly, aware my words were incendiary and not giving a damn.

  “We’re not terroristas,” Carlos snarled, fury making his own magic manifest in a spooky green haze that swirled around his fingers.

  “You attack indiscriminately,” Linford pointed out bluntly, but his tone was bland. He was stating a fact, not trying to cause a war.

  “We attack anything we can that has Fae backing,” Josefa argued.

  “Even if it makes sense? Or is intended for good?” I shot back at her and she instantly snorted.

  “The Assembly does nothing that doesn’t benefit itself. If you haven’t figured that out by now, then you’re slow.

  “Political tides turn every day, and we look at the bigger picture. That’s why we wanted your help. Inside eyes make for more accurate responses.”

  “Help? You were going to bring me here by any means necessary. My grandmother has been running from you for a lifetime—”

  “She’s been running from herself,” Carlos sneered, and around him, a few of the women nodded in agreement. “She knows exactly what the Fae are, and she turned her back on our group, the one alliance in the world who actually isn’t corrupt, because she was given a set of Virgo.”

  “You wanted me to kill them,” my abuela snarled. “You wanted me to—” Her mouth tightened. “I wasn’t going to do that, Carlos, and you were the one who had an issue with that.

  “I knew you’d forever question me and my loyalties, and I knew if you dragged my daughter into this mess, you’d make her pay for who her father was. Not just because he’s Fae either, but because you were jealous.

  “I ran because I had to. Because—”

  “Your allegiance changed.”

  Gabriella’s chin tipped up. “It did. I changed. I became a mother. That changes your priorities. I wanted my family raised without the corruption of the Conclave infiltrating our lives, I wanted my hija to grow without fear from you too. I’ve wasted a ton of years hiding out from the Conclave, the Assembly, and the AFata, but I told Riel the truth when she asked what your purpose was.

  “I wouldn’t have brought her here, period, if I didn’t think this was meant to be.”

  “You just want us to keep her safe,” Josefa retorted.

  “And that’s weird?” I replied, brow puckered. “It’s weird that my grandmother wants me to be safe?”

  Her cheeks puffed out, but her dislike was a storm in her eyes. “I suppose not.”

  “Of course it isn’t. But this is a moot point. We’re arguing for nothing. You’re a two-bit group who’s got one foot in the freedom fighter ring and the other in the terrorism ring. You’ve brought no real change since your inception because, if you had, I’d have learned about you at the Academy, so to the Fae, you’re not even worthy of being in their history books.

  “You may be spread across the world, but hatred does that. People with similar sentiments will always find a home, but I’m telling you, I can make a difference now. You can either believe me and we work together, or we can leave and you can go back to doing what you were doing—trying to get students to spy for you.” My lips curved in an arrogant smirk. “The choice is yours.”

  Seven

  Matthew

  “The choice is yours.”

  I almost snorted at Riel’s words, but I had to appreciate her ability to work a room. She was a drama queen, that much I’d known for a while, but I did enjoy how she had all these much older witches staring at her, and moodily assessing whether or not they could read her mettle.

  I could pretty much assure them they couldn’t.

  It seemed to me that my woman was working on pure instinct, relying on kismet, and allowing a magic we didn’t understand to dictate her next moves.


  I didn’t like it.

  I didn’t trust it.

  But also, I didn’t have a say in the matter. Not because she wasn’t giving me one, but because she was right.

  That a battalion had come after us told me all I needed to know—the Assembly wanted us. What they wanted us for was up for interpretation, but I couldn’t imagine it was to give us chocolate and candy.

  As the AFata pondered her declaration, I had to wonder just how long Riel would wait and how long the group would dally.

  I knew Riel was right on another matter too—the state of this office alone told us that the AFata wasn’t a well-funded organization. Of course, funds weren’t always monetary, and power was more important in an organization such as this, but it did help pay the bills too, and it looked like this place had needed condemning thirty years ago when Gabriella had been a part of the group.

  As I eyed the dump we were standing in, speculating if we’d contract some kind of disease from the black mold growing on the walls, Carlos finally grumbled, “How can we help?”

  The woman, Josefa, glowered at him, but she didn’t argue. Their dynamic was curious, even more so when she demanded, “Are you going to let him go?” She beckoned at the back wall where the witch was still pinned in place with whatever Riel had done to him.

  “Is he going to carry on trying to attack me?” she countered, and I eyed the male who, only Sol knew how, I’d sensed was working magic.

  Okay, that was bull.

  I knew how I’d figured it out, but that didn’t make it freak me out any less.

  It sounded like an even bigger pile of bullshit to claim that the energy around him had changed, but that was the only way I could even begin to describe what I’d felt.

  Everyone else, sure, they’d been transmitting heavy emotions—confusion, fear, and anger. But his? It had been weird. Malignant, almost.

  I didn’t trust the male, that was for sure.

  Because we were still touching, I murmured, “No,” too softly for the witches to hear.

  Josefa cut the male a look and barked something at him, but his reply was more of a grunt than a reassurance. Not that he could have reassured me. I knew whatever had worked him up enough to attack was still baiting him.