“What is it?” I rasped, my voice hoarse from having to scream so loud back on the mountain.
“Your hair,” my abuela muttered. “Your wings.”
“What about them?” I scowled, peering over my shoulder, trying to see what the problem was.
“They’re glittering,” Daniel whispered, and his voice was low, husky, and I recognized that tone, recognized it deep in my core.
Fuck.
What a time to be horny.
The Rut reared its ugly head. Thus far, the entire clusterfuck of my life had kind of taken precedence. What with being threatened with being swept away by the Amazon, eaten by leopards, and destroyed by wind born on Everest, I’d had other priorities.
Now?
Sol’s teeth.
My subsequent shiver had nothing to do with the cold. Nothing whatsoever. I tore my gaze from his and, knowing what I’d see in the face of the others, ignored Matt and Dan because I couldn’t handle seeing their arousal and not being able to act on it.
Instead, I just asked my grandparents, “Why?”
My grandmother shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s not a bad sign. If anything, I think it’s proof it’s working.”
How glittery hair was proof, I had no idea, but I wasn’t about to question something so unimportant.
Shrugging it off, I also willed away my Michelin-man coat because suddenly, I was nice and toasty—helped that I was near a volcano, I guessed—and decided to get down to business. The sooner this shit was over and done with, the sooner I could have an orgasm.
Or ten.
If that wasn’t enough to make me enthusiastic, then nothing else was. The deep tremble in my belly made itself known in the form of a gnawing ache that tore at my insides, but I had to focus.
Linford’s magical coordinates had brought us here for a reason, so it figured this was the place shit was about to get real. But exactly why was another matter entirely.
“This is an active volcano, yeah?” I questioned him, focusing on the here and now, not later.
“It is.” He peered around. “I don’t know if there’s a mouth. I’d assume it has one, but we’re nowhere near it. At least, I think we’d feel the heat.” He shrugged. “Volcanoes aren’t exactly a part of my expertise.”
I turned to my Virgo, but stared at their noses rather than their eyes because that was one way to Sol’s lair in a handbasket, and mumbled, “Okay, let’s get started.” I tossed the remaining piece of ore in my pocket onto the ground and my men did too.
Daniel didn’t have to touch them this time, but almost as though there was a magic in place that did so for him, the rune made itself known without him even having to brush it.
Maybe it figured it was the simplest rune of them all. A triangle. Thick and glowing, it seemed to respond to whatever was in the air as I settled them into a circle so that each seam was close to the other.
Standing back, I called on fire, and allowed two flames to settle into my palm. I placed the flares above the discs, allowing them to hover and hopefully heat the discs, but when nothing happened, when the glow actually died, I shuffled forward and stared down at the ore, willing them to do something.
“What did Trude say?” Dan murmured after my staring at the ore did fuck all. “Place the Fire stone within Heklugjá?”
I cut him a look. “How am I supposed to do that?”
“She said change would be born, so maybe there needs to be another eruption or something,” Matt muttered.
“Okay, so that’s like even harder than what you said, Dan. How in Sol’s name can I trigger an eruption?”
Almost as though the words were the catalyst I needed, beneath our feet, there was a rumble. I jerked in surprise, because the rumble wasn’t enough to shake me on my feet, to make me fall over, but I felt it. Knew the earth beneath me was stirring.
“Did you feel that?” I gasped, gaping at my group with round eyes.
“Feel what?”
“Huh?”
When everyone gave me pretty similar answers that asked me without saying a word, ‘What in Gaia’s graces are you talking about?’ I shrugged it off, then as if that wasn’t enough, the pulse that reminded me of the night we’d caught the meteor, the night this whole mess had begun, the white noise reappeared.
I screamed as it surged into my brain, louder than ever, louder even than the rapids of the Amazon, than the winds on Everest. It tore through my senses, ripped them to shreds. This time, I didn’t feel it when my knees collided with the mountain, didn’t even sense that I’d crumpled into a pile of nothing as the sound shredded my being. My eyes began to flicker and I saw it.
Saw it.
And just like that, the noise disappeared, and I was left staring up at the sky. As I did, I saw the faint metallic shimmer in the air around me. It was like nothing I’d ever seen before. Think NYE at midnight when someone had blown a shit ton of glitter into the air. That was the only way I could describe it, but this glitter was micro-small. Not enough for the average eye to see. It reminded me of…
Magic.
The golden gleam that surrounded the Fae. That filled the walls of Eight Wings Academy.
Magic was here.
The only question was why?
My mates were around me by this point, and their proximity didn’t stir arousal in me this time. I was too wrecked, inside and out, to even ponder the Rut.
I blinked at them, then whispered, “Help me up?”
Dan grabbed my hand and steadied me on my feet once I was standing. The second he moved back, my knees gave way. “Your eyes are silvery again,” he told me as he supported me.
“When I’m under p-pressure, you said?” I stuttered around a choked laugh. “Understatement.”
The noise that had fucked with my head had gone, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t left shaken by it. I felt like my brain had been raped—and that was no small statement. I truly felt like I’d been violated, and I didn’t give a shit if that was by Gaia or not, I just felt torn apart inside.
I leaned against Matt and stayed propped up against Dan as Seph moved the ore. I didn’t realize it, but I’d actually collapsed on top of them, shoving them apart. He moved them together again, and I watched with dazed eyes as he did so.
Then, I thought about that rumble beneath my feet, and I caught onto what had stirred it. I could only assume there was a lava chamber underneath me, and the thought that somehow the ore was supposed to be in that, told me the ground beneath us was either going to get fucking hot really quickly or it was going to crumble away.
I turned to my grandfather. “You need to get her off the mountain.”
My grandmother scowled at me. “Don’t talk about me like I’m not here—”
I ignored her and caught Linford’s eye. “What’s about to happen… she doesn’t have wings. She won’t be able to save herself,” I informed him simply.
He blinked at my explanation, but nodded. “I’ll be ready.”
Would I be?
I sighed, and to Dan, mumbled, “You might have to help me. I-I don’t feel too well.”
“Okay, babe. Don’t worry. We’ve all got you.”
And they did.
I felt their support like a wall at my back. It bolstered me, gave me strength when I was feeling truly decimated.
That thing Gaia did to my mind fucked with me in ways I couldn’t describe. It was like everything that was me was torn from me, ripped out of my grasp and…
My throat choked as I dipped my head. There was no point in focusing on just how badly my free will had been torn from me, instead, I only concentrated on that rumble from before. I channeled power into it, not really knowing what I was doing, but aware that I was doing something right as the rumble grew stronger. I felt my mates shifting around me, standing tall and straight so as to absorb the tremors in the ground.
My mouth worked for a second, noiselessly, as I focused on creating heat from beneath me. That was the only way I could describe it. The earth
had guided me, told me where to focus, where to channel my magic, but otherwise, it was in Sol’s and Gaia’s hands.
A second before the ground gave way, I knew it, and screamed, “Now!” My wings fluttered, but they were useless. My Virgo grabbed me as they jerked me into the air.
“Farther away,” I shrieked. “Too close!”
I was relieved when Linford grabbed my grandmother, even more relieved when he stayed close to us. I had a feeling we’d need to get out of here quickly, especially when I saw the ore disappearing as it tumbled through the rift that had appeared from out of nowhere.
The ground cracked and creaked, shards of bright molten hot light spilling between each crevice. The silver orbs were gone, but not for long. Just as the ground totally caved in, crashing down until it was like that big, gaping hole had always been there, a pure spout of lava soared upward.
If I hadn’t seen it for myself, I would never have believed it.
It reminded me of a geyser, except for the fact it was molten fucking lava. It was so bright that I could feel the damage to my eyes, and just as I thought about looking away, I saw that the ore was perched atop it. This time, the lava spout climbed almost as high as us. About forty feet in the air. The ore, hovering on it, began to be beaten into shape, the lava pummeling it with its strength.
Within seconds, that fat piece of ore was shaped into a disc, and when the expected bolt of sunlight hit it, my body shuddered as the gold in the air seemed to be polarized, magnetized until it was clinging to the stream of light.
Around me, my men shrieked, and Linford too—he howled in pain. I couldn’t speak though. Couldn’t ask what was going on. The bolt of sunlight collided with the disc, staying pure and true, and just as the ground rumbled once more, I saw the bubbling lava begin to surge from deep in the volcano’s belly.
“Get us out of here!” I screamed at Linford, but whatever was making him shriek in pain, making my mates yell too, took all his attention. I stared at him, saw he was struggling to hold my grandmother in place.
Calling on the wind, I sent a surge toward them, letting it settle under her feet, propping her up to give him some relief. The desperation on his face, the sweat on his brow, told me how he’d been struggling, and the instant relief told me I’d helped him.
As the lava began to spit and spurt upward, I realized I’d triggered the volcano’s eruption. What didn’t make sense was why my men were howling and looking at their fucking arms as though they were about to drop off…
Of course, that was when I saw their gold bands. They were alight with heat, shining just as hotly as the lava, and as they scrabbled to remove them from their wrists, tearing at flesh to relieve the pain of the burn, I knew it was useless.
In the distance, so far away that I shouldn’t have been able to notice them, I heard similar screams. There were so many of them, so fucking many, that I knew this wasn’t happening only to my grandfather and my Virgo.
It was happening to all Fae in the vicinity.
Maybe even everywhere.
What I’d just done…
It was the start of change.
The catalyst.
Only the gods knew what lay next for us.
Only they knew what they’d truly started.
❖
Dan
The pain was like nothing else I’d ever known. It tore through me, burning me as though the heat didn’t just come from an exterior source, but from an interior one too.
I’d grabbed a hold of Riel with Seph, and though she was tightly held between us, sandwiched almost, I struggled to free my wrists from the gold band that I felt sure was trying to amputate my fucking hands. No matter what I did, though, nothing worked.
Nothing helped me get rid of the bands that were the instruments the Fae used to call on witch magic.
As agony tore me to shreds, I didn’t even really notice when the light around us began to pulse. It might have even been a trick of my eyes, because all I was focused on was the sheer, gut-wrenching pain that was centered around the bands.
Just as the throbbing began to disperse, it was like someone had turned off the light switch, turning our world from bright sunlight to endless darkness. It was like night had fallen, as though…
But the sun had been nowhere near setting!
If anything, it had felt like it was midday.
With the sudden pitch-black having overtaken everything else, I gasped, “What’s happening?”
The ache was still there, the burn as prominent as ever, but I could speak. My tongue felt too thick in my mouth, and damn, everything hurt, yet I managed to work those words out of my throat.
“I think this is what was always supposed to happen,” she whispered, and when I stared at her—my eyes blurry as I tried to focus—I saw enough to realize her head was tipped back. When I followed her line of sight, I blinked, certain my eyes really weren’t working this time.
The night sky wasn’t dark. In this light-poor place, somewhere with very little light pollution, I knew the sight of the stars would be phenomenal. But this? These things… they weren’t stars.
“A meteor shower,” Riel rasped, her voice thick and husky as she watched the display overhead.
I’d never seen anything like it, and I remembered the Leonids shower back in Tucson when I was a kid. I’d only been like six or some shit like that, but Sol, I’d been old enough to remember just how awe-inspiring that had been. Over a thousand meteors soaring through the night sky in an hour that evening, yet this? It was enough to make me think Sol and Gaia were having a firework’s display of their own.
Maybe they were.
If this was what they’d been working toward for centuries, maybe this was their idea of a party.
I just wished that idea didn’t include me feeling like my hands were being lopped off with a poorly sharpened meat cleaver.
“Can you get us out of here?” Matt screamed at Linford, and I realized why.
The scream was because the eruption was noisy. Noisy as fuck. I blinked down at the volcano, saw that it was definitely not dormant, and understood my troupe brother’s agitation.
Linford, who along with his mate, had been gaping up at the sky, jolted at Matt’s holler, then muttered, “Certainly.”
And like that, we were no longer at the volcano. Instead, we were…
I frowned.
Where were we?
My confusion outweighed even my discomfort, and I kept a firm hold on Riel as we all fluttered down to the ground as he’d transported us midair, I guessed it made sense that we’d arrive midair too.
“Where are we?” Matt demanded, whirling around a garden that looked vaguely familiar.
“My home,” Linford muttered, sounding perplexed as Sol, and I couldn’t blame him.
“We’re in Honolulu?” Seph asked.
Linford blinked. “I-I thought we were.” He eyed his wrists, then raised them. “This happen to you as well?”
I stared at the scorch marks on my wrists. Literal burns from where the gold had… My stomach churned as I rubbed a finger down the small length of skin that had gold bubbled into it. Figured that’s why it had hurt so fucking much.
Shuddering at the sight, I cast a glimpse at Seph and Matt, saw they were similarly afflicted, and mumbled, “What in Gaia’s name is that about?”
“I don’t know,” Linford inserted, “but this was my home. I figured maybe the band had messed with my magic, taken us someplace else, but that kukui tree is mine. Definitely.” He pointed to a tree he was scowling at.
“So where’s the house?” Riel questioned, her voice low and hoarse.
“I don’t know,” Linford drawled, before tipping his chin back and saying, “It’s dark here too, and look at the sky. Full of meteors. That can’t be a coincidence.”
“Thought coincidences weren’t even in your vocabulary,” she sniped back, but there was little heat in the words, and I knew that for a fact because her focus was on the sky too, and there wa
s no way, in the face of such beauty, that anyone could start bickering.
“It worked,” Gabriella breathed, out of the blue.
“I have to think it did,” Linford concurred. “I just never imagined when you told me what you were bound to do all those years ago that this would be the end result.”
I cut him a look. “What did she tell you?”
“She’s my Virgo mate. We share everything.”
“Hardly,” Seph retorted. “Don’t think my father was—”
Gabriella snorted. “Of course he was. I told them everything. Every last thing. But when Noa decided he couldn’t handle the mate bond, and when I agreed that I wasn’t a natural fit for the Virgo connection either, Linford did a little magic of his own. Everything was cleared from my mates’ minds. It was safer for them that way. Safer for you too, Riel.”
She pursed her lips, not giving her grandmother any quarter, and considering we’d been working blind when Gabriella had evidently known some of what was ahead of us, I couldn’t exactly blame her.
“What now?” I muttered, staring up at the sky once more.
“I don’t know,” Gabriella admitted.
And wouldn’t you just know it?
Kismet got involved again.
The ringtone from Seph’s phone burst into the clearing where Linford’s property had once stood. He cut Riel a look. “That’s my father’s ringtone.”
“Pick it up, then,” Gabriella told him softly. “Let’s see what he has to say.”
The second Seph connected the call and put the phone on speaker, Noa was screaming, “Son? Your wrists, did they…?”
“Yes, Father. They did. Is it dark where you are now?”
“Yes. It’s dark when it most definitely should be early morning. The sun had just started to rise, and from out of nowhere, it grew dark. Have you seen the meteors?”
“Can’t miss them, Father.”
“Where are you?”
“Hawaii. The same thing happened here.” He hesitated a second. “Pitch-black all around. What about the buildings around you? Are you at Landgow?”
Finally Faeling: An Eight Wings Academy Novel: Book Three Page 23