Institute of the Shadow Fae Box Set

by C. N. Crawford

  Now, I’d snuffed so many lives out that there were hardly any left. Gods, I wanted more. More still lungs, more severed heads. More blood on my blade.

  There—a most beautiful heart beating, so large and healthy. I needed to rip the thing in half. All beautiful things must die. I’d crush it like a rose in my fist.

  A name pierced the fog of my bloodlust, and my movements stilled. Death magic started to ripple along my arms, down my fingertips, and I yearned to unleash it, to slaughter every living creature. How glorious it would feel to kill them all … every last moth and hummingbird. I’d crush the sparrows in my fist and wring the blood from their bodies, grind their bones to dust.

  “Death is my name,” I snarled. “All fall before me.”

  “Liora!” That beautiful, rich, deep voice stroked my skin, calming me. Silky magic brushed over my body. My body was shaking, legs trembling, but that soothing magic warmed me from the inside out.

  The heart—the one I’d longed to stop with my powers—still beat. And now, I became aware of the body around it. The powerful fae body, the one marked with savage tattoos. The arms that would always protect me—violet eyes and pale gold hair.

  “Ruadan,” I breathed.

  All the death power rushed out of my body like a wild river and nausea replaced it. I hunched over on the ground, on my hands and knees. Dark blood soaked the soil from all the demons I’d just killed.

  I choked down my urge to vomit, mastering control of myself once more. Then, I lifted my eyes to search the battleground around me.

  But the battle was over. Only Ruadan remained, and the two fae witches, peeking out from behind the trunks of oak trees. Their brightly colored magic still electrified their bodies.

  Aenor stepped out from behind the oak, her dark eyes wide. “That was … interesting.”

  Ruadan leaned down. Holding my elbow, he helped me rise to my feet, his magic still soothing me. As it whispered over my skin, it took some of the shaking out of my limbs, the cramping out of my muscles. My wings had disappeared, and strangely, their absence felt like a loss.

  I surveyed the land around me. Broken bodies littered the ground—severed spines, streams of demon blood seeping into the earth.

  “You’re a formidable ally,” said Ruadan. “Dangerous, but formidable.”

  I pointed at his heart, catching my breath. “Sorry about the, um— I almost killed you.”

  Tentatively, Cora stepped out from behind the tree. “So that’s what people mean by ‘orgy of violence.’ I’d never had the visual before. I could have done without it in my brain, honestly.”

  I gripped my stomach. “Are you really judging me? One of you goes by the nickname Flayer of Skins.”

  Aenor shrugged. “I do keep things tidy, though.” Then, she crouched down and pulled out a knife. She started to carve out one of the demon’s hearts. “This will fetch a pretty penny.”

  “Who do you plan on selling it to?” asked Cora. “The corpses of the other demons? There’s no one else here, and we remain trapped.”

  I looked at Ruadan. “Any ideas how to open the world beyond what we’ve tried?”

  He scrubbed a hand over his mouth. “My magic only strengthened the barrier between the worlds. It melded with my grandfather’s. Our magic is one and the same. We need the magic of other gods to break through it. And it has to be powerful.”

  Aenor gripped the bleeding demon heart. “Good thing you have us, then. I serve Dagon, the sea god.”

  Cora raised a hand. “Storm god.”

  “I can chant the Angelic spell to open the world,” said Ruadan, “but I’ll need your magic to break its bonds.”

  Apprehension tingled over my skin once more, the hair rising on my nape, and I glanced at the forest’s edge. Ice slid through my bones. There, between the trunks, thousands of pale eyes gleamed with shadow magic. A legion of demons surrounded us, ready to strike again.

  I swallowed hard. “You might want to do that now, ladies.”

  Aenor looked into the woods, her pupils dilating. “Oh, dear.”

  “I’m not going to be able to kill them all,” I said. A deep fatigue had spread through my bones. “I’ll do what I can while you work your magic.”

  “Careful, Liora.” Ruadan’s voice, again like balm around my body.

  Sword in my hand, I stalked toward the forest’s edge. “Just open the portal as fast as you can.”

  From behind me, Ruadan’s Angelic chants filled the air. The air ignited with storm and sea magic—salt and the scent of brine floated on the breeze. Lightning cracked the sky, clouds roiling overhead. A heavy rain started to fall. The two witches were strange creatures, but I’d quickly come to love them and their magic.

  The first line of demons rushed for me, tearing through the forest, snarling. Luckily, there weren’t many yet. This time, I knew better than to let them get their claws into me. The tip of my sword kept them at bay. Adrenaline sapped away the weakness in my bones.

  The ground trembled, thundering with the sound of the oncoming horde of demons. A few favors, Ruadan had said. But Nyxobas had transformed the entire landscape. My former home, overtaken by these miserable creatures.

  Come on, witches. Open that portal.

  Thousands of pale eyes, running for us over the gnarled forest roots.

  A blast of powerful magic rippled out over the earth, vibrating through my bones. I fell to the ground, and Ruadan screamed my name.

  I pushed myself up from the earth, gripping my sword hard. When I rose, I caught a glimpse of the portal gleaming behind me. It glowed with the blue and gray of seas and storms, and lightning struck its surface.

  The two witches jumped in, but Ruadan was waiting for me at the portal’s edge, holding out his hand to me.

  I charged for it as fast as I could, and when I reached it, I slammed into his body, knocking him into the portal with me.

  We sank deep beneath the salty water.

  Chapter 123

  I climbed out of the portal and into Aenor’s shop. The portal’s opening was narrow, but it still filled most of the space. Aenor and Cora had already slipped behind the counter. Next to me, Ruadan hoisted himself out, seawater dripping off his muscled body.

  Aenor turned and nailed the waterlogged demon heart to the wall.

  Exhaustion had sapped my strength, but I now felt more frantic than ever to find my parents. Now I knew Baleros had gotten to them.

  In the center of the room, the portal closed, and I steadied myself against the wall, still catching my breath. “What do we need to do now? You said we needed something for this tracking spell. Some kind of blood—what else?” I realized I was shouting, and I probably shouldn’t be yelling at the people who were helping us, but my panic was starting to dissolve my patience.

  “We’ve got most of it here,” said Aenor.

  “But we don’t have everything,” added Cora.

  “We need a….” Aenor blushed, and her gaze flitted nervously to Ruadan. “A satyr’s … you know.”

  “What?” said Ruadan, irritated.

  “His manhood,” Aenor whispered.

  “His penis?” I blurted, baffled.

  Aenor’s cheeks were now as bright as Cora’s hair.

  I held up my hands. “I’m sorry. You go by the name Flayer of Skins, Scourge of the Wicked. And you live in a shop with hearts nailed to the wall, one of which I just saw you carve out of a demon’s chest. You’re covered in blood, which you seem fine with. And you can’t say the word ‘penis?’”

  “I was born in a different time,” she said defensively.

  I blew out a long breath. “Well, my bag of satyr dicks is fresh out, so does anyone have any ideas?” Again, I found myself yelling at the people helping me. Maybe my little death-angel stint in Eden had brought out my unpleasant side.

  Cora rubbed her eyes. “I should probably add that we’ve literally never found a satyr penis. They don’t give them up very easily. They have a thing about wanting to keep them att
ached.”

  “Can’t imagine why,” I said.

  “I know where we can get one,” said Ruadan.

  The room fell silent, and I blinked at him. “I’m not sure I even want to know.”

  Ruadan frowned. “Is it a problem if it’s attached to the satyr, or do we need it severed?”

  “We just need it to stir with,” said Aenor.

  Cora’s brow furrowed as she considered Ruadan’s proposal. “I mean, I suppose he could just sort of … stick it in the potion and give it a good stir.” She gyrated her hips, then cleared her throat. “Please forget that I just made those hip movements.”

  Ruadan shrugged. “It will be easier to convince a satyr to lend us his penis if we don’t have to remove it.”

  I clapped my hands together. “Good, okay. Where do we find a satyr?”

  “The Carnival of Secrets,” said Ruadan. “All we need is a coin from the ringmaster to gain entrance.”

  I gripped his arm. “I’m not even really understanding the words you’re saying right now. Just tell me the rest when we get there. Let’s get on this now.” I nodded at Aenor. “You two—get the potion ready, and we’ll bring you the dick.”

  This time, the portal opened into what looked like a darkened city park, and Ruadan led me to a forlorn-looking circus tent. The tattered fabric looked as if it had been here for a century, and it flapped in the wind. It was a tiny thing, and it looked completely abandoned.

  “We’ll find a satyr in there?” I whispered.

  “I think so. I haven’t seen him since the worlds closed. It looks … smaller now.”

  At this point, I knew better than to sheath my sword going into any new dark place. There was a good chance I’d be killing at least one person in there, especially since we were covered in seawater and blood and looked terrifying.

  Side by side, we moved closer to the tent. Ruadan lifted the canvas flap, and it yawned open into complete darkness. For a moment, I felt the dizzy sense of standing on the edge of a void—that the tiny, ragged exterior belied the vastness within here.

  Then, a light sparked—a silver sphere from Ruadan that floated in the air. It illuminated a faded, checkered floor and a man who stood before us wearing a mask of a horse’s head. And behind him, striped curtains—no, not curtains. As the light rose, I saw that it was an impossibly tall woman, her skirts blocking our way. Blond mermaid hair waved over her shoulders, and she smiled down at us.

  As we walked closer, she lifted her skirts, allowing us to walk between her legs.

  I cleared my throat, finding all of this a bit awkward, and I resisted the weird impulse to look up between her legs as we crossed between them into a long, dimly lit hall. The length of this hall didn’t seem possible, given the size of the tent outside, and yet here we were, walking toward a gold-framed door at the far end. A glass case on a stand stood by the side of the door.

  As we drew closer, the gold door swung open, and a small, white-eyed man stepped out wearing a top hat. Then, the door slammed closed behind him, and a golden lock slid shut with a loud click.

  Ruadan looked at me. “Let me handle this.” He turned to the man and said, “We bring love in exchange for coin.”

  The little man reached into his pocket and pulled out a gold coin. He tossed the coin high into the air, and Ruadan caught it.

  Ruadan turned to the glass case. For the first time, I had a good view of it. Inside sat a red-lipped wooden doll with bulging eyes, dressed in a sailor costume. Ruadan slid the coin into a slot below the doll, and a mechanical whirring noise started ticking, the doll’s body jerking around.

  Then, its head snapped toward me, eyes locked on mine. The doll’s wooden mouth opened and closed. “Liora.” He broke into high-pitched, disconcerting laughter, tinged with the sound of cranking gears.

  My gaze flicked to Ruadan. This satyr penis better be worth it.

  The doll creaked and jerked, shifting position. Its wooden mouth opened and closed. “To enter here, you must answer this question.” More high-pitched laughter. “Liora. How did Nyxobas prophesy this would all end?”

  Ice slid through my blood. I’d hidden the truth from Ruadan—again, and I knew how much he hated that. Could I get off on a technicality?

  “Badly.”

  The doll twitched. “What did he say?” he barked.

  “You have to be more specific, Liora,” Ruadan prompted. “It’s the only way to open the lock.”

  Anger roiled in my chest. Cora’s words—the ones about the gods always winning, always controlling everything—were starting to get to me. I hated nothing more than feeling powerless. I glanced at the golden lock on the door. Could I hack through it with my sword? With enough strength, could I just smash the thing?

  Then, I swallowed hard. If Ruadan said it was the only way in, then it was the only way in. Gods knew he had enough strength of his own, so brute force wasn’t gaining us entry.

  I stole another quick glance at Ruadan, and I steadied my breath. I clutched the hilt of my sword. “He said that this all ends with Ruadan dying, but I think it’s bollocks so I didn’t bother passing it on.”

  “Lie!” said the doll. A peal of shrieking, mechanical laughter.

  I hated this little wooden bastard. “It’s what he said. You asked what he said, and I told you.”

  “But you know Nyxobas doesn’t lie,” said the doll. More earsplitting laughter.

  Dread fluttered in my skull. Whatever else happened, I didn’t want to live in a world that Ruadan wasn’t in.

  I smacked the glass. “I answered your question. Let us through.”

  The doll went still, jerking to a halt.

  I glanced at the door, and the lock slid open. The little man shifted out of the way.

  Ruadan’s eyes had darkened, like they did whenever he sensed a threat, whenever his life was at risk. Despite my assurances about Nyxobas’s prophecy being bollocks, Ruadan believed it. “Why did you lie to me again?”

  “Because I don’t want it to be true!” I hissed. “I don’t want to live in a world that you’re not in. You and I belong together. I am Death, but you give me life. Your loss would stop time and blacken the skies. Your death would be my apocalypse.”

  The mechanical doll groaned, emitting another cackle.

  I pointed at it. “If you died, my soul would die, too, and I’d turn into that fucking thing. A creaking, empty, dead-eyed husk devoid of real life. Do you understand? So it won’t happen, because it can’t. I’m Death, and I say when the apocalypse happens. Fuck your grandpa. That’s it. End of story. Now let’s move on from that wooden weirdo, and have a normal, focused mission procuring a satyr cock, shall we?”

  Ruadan was staring at me, so intently and deeply that I felt as if he were seeing into my very soul. His magic skimmed and snaked over my skin like a caress, and he reached up to cup my cheek.

  His touch was painfully light. The gentleness of it was like a knife to my heart, because it felt like a goodbye. I didn’t want this now. This felt like the end. This was why I hadn’t told him.

  Before I could say another word, the door groaned open. I pulled away from Ruadan, not accepting his goodbye, and I took a step into the doorway. Flashing, colored lights pulsed over a tent crowded with people and swaths of bright silks in scarlet and cobalt.

  Truthfully, the biggest draw to my eye were all the breasts. In the crowded tent, the women were hardly dressed. Many of them were in sequined corsets that exposed them from the nipples up. Others wore thigh-high stockings and the tiniest of knickers. Many of the men were shirtless, their muscled bodies oiled, mustaches waxed into curls.

  Brightly colored lanterns hung from the top of a peaked circus tent, casting lurid lights over half-naked acrobats above us, and a tightrope walker who wore only a bowtie, high heels, and a feathered bustier. A luxurious white lion prowled around the edge of the circus, and a naked woman with long blond hair rode a horse like Lady Godiva.

  I tried to keep my eyes off all the writhing b
odies around us—the thrusting and groping and gyrating hips. It was less of a circus and more of an orgy designed by a Victorian pervert.

  I narrowed my eyes. “What did you say you used to come here for?”

  I already knew how he was going to respond—with something vague and evasive like. “I didn’t say, actually.” To my surprise, he met my gaze evenly and said, “I’m an incubus. I came here to feed off lust, so I could gain strength.”

  “Oh. Right.” He made it all sound so reasonable when he put it that way.

  His gaze slowly made its way down my body. As it did, I looked down at myself, shocked to see that my own clothing had transformed. My leather trousers had changed into a tiny skirt, short enough that I was pretty sure my bum was peeking out the back. Thigh-high fishnet stockings covered my legs, and a tiny striped top stretched over my breasts—enough, at least, to cover the nipples. My bra had disappeared entirely. I yanked the tube top up higher, readjusting it.

  Most annoyingly, my sword had vanished. “What the hells?”

  “The circus master is the satyr. This is his magic.”

  I looked up at Ruadan, whose clothing had changed into a cloak that covered his entire body. Only his pale violet eyes shone out from beneath his cowl. That gaze now swept over my body, lingering over my curves, my breasts, my hips, and I could feel his magic licking at my body.

  He gripped me by the waist, his touch again agonizingly light.

  “Not now,” I whispered into his neck. “Save that for later. After we save the world.”

  After we save the world—and you are still alive because I won’t let you die.

  His quiet growl trembled over my exposed skin.

  “Now, where do we find this satyr?” I asked.

  Ruadan tore his eyes away from me and looked around the circus tent.

  A woman in a sheer bra and knickers walked up behind him and stroked his back, brushing a kiss over his neck. She was gripping a bottle of whiskey. “Been a long time since I’ve seen you, fae prince,” she giggled.