Taunting Destiny

by Amelia Hutchins

  “She's nothing more than a toy to you. She is so much fucking more, Ryder, so much more, and you don’t deserve her if you can't see that.”

  “I don't answer to you, Cadeyrn. She's a way to pass the time in this cesspool. I have made her no promises, beyond training and protection. When I have had my fill of her, I’ll let her go. Until then, I suggest you stay the fuck out of my business, boy.”

  “Did you tell her that, or better yet, why don't you tell her that you had Adrian killed so you could fuck her!?” I shout, tired of playing word games with this overbearing prick.

  *~*~*~*~*Synthia*~*~*~*~*

  I gasped as my hand flew over my mouth, and I leaned heavily against the wall to keep myself from falling over. Ryder was an asshole, and I was still reeling about him and Adam being brothers. I turned, heading back to the room as fast as my feet would go, and silently closed the door with shaking hands. I had to get away from him.

  I don't know what I had expected from him, but I wasn't his to use as he saw fit. This was taking things too far, and I was tired of it; tired of everything. Adam wasn't even named Adam! Seriously! It was like waking up with someone else's life, and no matter how much I wanted it to change, it wouldn’t.

  Ryder had killed Adrian, or at least he'd had a part in it. More than likely, he ordered it and Vlad carried it out. Either way, I was done with Ryder the second I was finished with Transition. I couldn't trust him. He was up to something, and it wasn't as if he planned on sticking around, other than to finish his business and head back inside Faery.

  “You shouldn’t be eavesdropping, Flower,” Ristan said, startling me. Damn Demon was just lying around on my bed and making himself at home.

  “People should just tell the fucking truth around here then,” I snapped, frustrated with the entire situation.

  “Why can't I see your future?” Ristan sighed, swinging his feet off the bed to sit on the edge.

  “No clue. What’s Ryder’s assignment in this world?” I tossed a question back at him.

  “He will tell you sooner or later. Tell me, my little Flower, what do you remember of the men who broke in and murdered your foster parents?”

  “Parents; It takes more than sperm and an egg to become parents. They raised me,” I said, seething with anger. After what I had witnessed with Ryder and Adam, this questioning had me off balance, and there was a Demon that was gonna get his ass kicked if he wasn’t careful.

  “Touché. Tell me what you remember of the men who killed your parents then,” he repeated as his eyes took me in slowly.

  “You saw everything I remember with Z's little 'regression therapy' session. I don't want to remember that shit,” I snapped.

  “Ah, but I think you do. I’ll bet that’s why you got the tattoos on your arms. You spelled them so you would never forget what happened.”

  “Why did Ryder keep from me that he was Adam’s brother?” I ignored his question and asked another.

  “I don’t think that was intentional. We suspected that Adam was the Dark Heir when he broke out of Transition early, and the Heir brands formed. The Dark King came here today to confirm Adam’s identity, as every Fae father is linked with his child. For some reason, Adam’s link was not working as it should, and I suspect it has something to do with your tattooing. Now, what else do you remember? It might help us solve the mystery of who you are—or were, before.”

  “It doesn't matter to me who I was, Ristan. The only thing that I care about right now is finishing Transition, and getting the fuck out of here. I am who I was before. Just because I'm Transitioning doesn't mean I actually changed the core or character of who I am. I'm still me and being Fae doesn't change me; it changes my DNA only.”

  He smiled and messed his long inky-black hair up as he ran his large hand through it. “I don’t like mysteries, and, right now you and Adam are the only wild cards in my life. I can see pretty far into everyone else’s future—hell, I can tell you most of what will play out for the next week, but not the two of you. I can't even tell what you will have for dinner.”

  “Ryder. Because he owns me, I'll be having Ryder for dinner, right up until the very second I'm done with his contract. Then, you can bet your ass that he won't be on my menu. Besides, the future is never set, because a single choice can change everything.”

  “Exactly, Synthia. Hence why I need to know where you fit in. I don’t like the fact that I can’t see your future, or where you fit into Ryder’s—”

  “Ryder’s, what?” Ryder asked from the door.

  “Ryder, I was explaining to Synthia why unknown factors shouldn't be left as unknown.”

  “She doesn't need to know any of this, Ristan,” Ryder warned with his eyes on me.

  “Yeah, I get it—knowing too much is dangerous. And anything that doesn't fit in your plan gets itself killed. But then, you'd know all about that now, wouldn't you, Ryder?” I sneered, before turning and leaving the bedroom. I slammed the bathroom door and considered sifting out, but then I'd probably land at his fucking feet and defeat the purpose. Besides, I was almost out of his fucking contract and then I'd be gone for good.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The next few days were spent learning to sift, which mostly consisted of me landing on my knees in front of Ryder, whom I wanted nothing to do with. I reached up and wiped the sweat from my face, before huffing in frustration and trying again.

  I’d been ignoring him since the day I’d over heard his little conversation with Adam. It had dug its way to the top of the box inside my head, and every time I looked at him since, I could hear him telling Adam I meant nothing to him. I’d been putting distance between us, and no matter how hard I tried, I failed at it. I should hate him, but the truth was: I didn’t. I was hurt and angry all the way to my soul, but I didn’t hate him.

  Ryder had been silent and brooding as I ignored him. There was a tension around the mansion that was palpable. Even his men gave him a wide berth when he walked through the room. I hadn't brought up what I'd overheard because it probably wouldn't change anything, or change how he felt for that matter.

  My goal now was to finish Transition and figure out my next steps, without including Ryder. I was getting too close, feeling too much for him, which I should have known better than to do. I was becoming the type of female who wanted a mate in her life and, even though I did want love, now wasn’t the right time, and Ryder had shown me he was absolutely not the right man.

  “Focus.” He growled. “Picture what you want. Put it inside your mind and visualize it,” Ryder said from where he stood across the yard.

  Adam was my focal point. It should have been easy. It wasn't. I had been at it for days now, and the hunger was becoming all I could think about, and I wasn't caving in. I wouldn't give in and allow Ryder to use me. After his little speech to Adam, I'd made a vow to myself that I wouldn't be used by him again. If anyone would be used, it would be him. But it would be on my terms, and I'd make damn sure he knew it.

  I closed my eyes and tried again, and groaned when I felt the wet grass beneath my jeans again. I pushed off the ground and spun around ignoring Ryder as he held out his arm to grab me. When I was across the yard again, I closed my eyes, shutting out the world. I'd tried everything, and either I was defective, or I hadn't found the power within, as Ryder kept calling it.

  Adam could sift with ease. He'd done it on his first attempt perfectly. I was distracted by everything inside my mind and everything going on around me, and everyone trying to keep me in the dark was making matters worse. I tried to send out my senses and pulled them back, afraid to tap the leyline. I opened my eyes and caught Ryder's cocky smirk as he looked from me to the ground that had actual imprints from my knees.

  I was tired, and cramping from hunger. Frustrated and pushed to my limits, I closed my eyes and tried to focus on my magic, the magic I was used to. Everything was colliding together. Hunger pushed at me as my mind grasped what it could. I smiled as power suddenly rushed through me. Shouts er
upted from Adam as he felt me tapping the leyline. My mind had been so jumbled. I hadn’t even realized that I’d tapped the leyline. I opened my eyes as Ryder snarled and sifted to me, shoving me to the ground.

  Ryder’s men were instantly surrounding us as I released the line, realizing the mistake I’d made. Ryder was the first to speak as his men closed in around us. “What the fuck, Syn?”

  “I didn’t mean to!” I cried, shaking with the knowledge that I’d just jeopardized everyone here with my carelessness.

  “You never tap a fucking line unless you know where it leads!” he shouted at me furiously, and I deserved it. I was trained better than this.

  “I’m fucking sorry!” I cried back through angry tears.

  “Ristan,” Ryder growled as his Demon’s eyes flashed red.

  “Something’s coming Ryder, something big,” Ristan said with an eerie calmness that didn’t match his words.

  “No visual of what it is?” Ryder asked, pulling me up and closer to his body.

  “Whatever it is, Ryder, it’s coming for her alone,” Ristan said as his eyes went back to black and silver.

  “Savlian, Dristan, get these two inside the house. The rest of you, get ready,” Ryder said as he pushed me away from himself and toward Dristan.

  I watched as those who surrounded Ryder shimmered momentarily and then solidified again, only now they were dressed in dark cloaks and tunics, with wicked looking weapons held in their hands. All of them looked like something out of the books I had read back at the Guild, in their Fae battle gear; ready for war or whatever it was that was heading our way.

  “Ryder, be safe,” Dristan said.

  I didn’t say anything as those golden eyes met and held mine captured. I couldn’t. This was my fault. Savlian pushed Adam toward Dristan and grabbed my hand. “Stupid girl,” he growled.

  “Enough, Savlian. Take her to her room and guard the door until I say otherwise,” Ryder snarled, leveling me with a dark stare as his eyes changed, and his cloak materialized around him. It was the same one from the Wild Hunt, and instantly he’d changed from the beautiful man, into the beautiful, dangerous creature I saw in Faery.

  “Sure thing,” Savlian, said holding his hand out in front of us to indicate we should precede them. I started forward, but only because I was about to pass out. I needed to feed, and I was being stubborn, but I had never imagined it would lead to anything like this.

  Upstairs, I entered my room as Adam, saying nothing, started toward his own. “Adam?” I called out, hoping he'd turn around and say something, but he just shook his dark head and kept walking. I spun on my heels and went after him. “What the hell, Adam?”

  “What do you want from me, Syn? Because I'm in the same fucking boat, on the same fucking pond, and right now, we’re both sinking!”

  “In the room, you two,” Savlian said as he folded his massive arms across his chest.

  “We are not sinking, Adam. It’s called surviving. If you want to go and do whatever, do it. Don't stay because I need you. I'm a big girl and I'll be fine. I need you to be happy. I don’t want you to stay because you feel obligated or anything stupid like that.”

  “Syn,” Adam said when I spun around to leave. “Stop dammit. I'm just—shit! How the fuck am I supposed to stay when the only thing I feel right now is the need to be with you?”

  “Adam, I need to be with you as well,” I whispered, and reached for his hand, but he jerked it away as if I was diseased.

  “No, Syn, I actually want to be with you. Not by you, not around you, I want to be inside of you, and it makes me sick. I loved Larissa, and, yet, I can't even feel her death anymore. The only thing I feel is this need to help you. To take that internal fucking hunger away and make the pain stop, because I feel it every fucking minute out of the day. It's driving me insane!”

  I took a step back and shook my head, confused. I wasn't sure what to say other than shit, and a few other choice obscene words. “Adam—”

  The house shook as something exploded outside. Adam caught me before I could fall to the floor. I cried out as I realized that whatever I had brought to us had just detonated some sort of explosive outside where Ryder and his men were.

  “Downstairs, now!” Savlian shouted, and Adam obeyed by grabbing hold of me. We sifted to the basement where Dristan and Savlian were weaving a spell against the wall.

  “Get inside,” Dristan shouted as Savlian pushed us inside a make-shift shelter, and before we could respond or ask what had happened, they'd sealed us inside.

  I couldn't speak past the lump that had formed in my throat. Guilt crept up my neck. Something was happening out there because I'd tapped the line and I'd brought whatever it was back to me. I turned and looked at Adam. “This is my fault,” I whispered, and looked around the room. A large bed was positioned in the corner of the room and actual lanterns sat on a dresser, already lit. I scanned for anything, weapon wise, and jumped when Adam spoke.

  “This isn't your fault. We’re stumbling through it, Syn. While we know what I am, we still have no idea how to get your powers open. Think of it like a box, one you have to unlock. You have to want it to open, and right now you don't know how to get to that place in your head. You’re starving, I can feel it; you want to go home, you want everything to stop and just go back to the way it was. It won't. We both know that. Ryder said that these feelings—”

  “I heard him, I heard everything. I know he ordered the hit on Adrian. What I don't know, is why?” I left out the part where he was using me, because it hurt still, and I didn't want to hear it, didn't want to feel it—or worse, to have Adam feel it through the bond.

  “I don’t know. Hell, all I heard was Zahruk saying he would kill him again if he couldn't keep his hands off of you. My guess is that Ryder's been trailing us for a while. That he's been watching and waiting. Watching you, Syn. Alden said Marie left a letter saying that in the event of her death, Alden should contact Ryder. What I don’t know was why she would think he could help you.”

  “Ryder told me that Marie sent him a letter a few years ago too, but it just said something about protecting me, and that I was different from the rest of the Witches. You think she knew what we were?”

  “I think she, at least, suspected it, or why leave the letter? Unless she thought she was helping you, she wouldn't have left it. She loved you. She loved us all. She was well respected and an elder, and I’ll bet she covered Alden's ass from the get go about us.”

  I nodded considering it. “You have a fucking Fairy family,” I said with a cheeky grin after a minute of silence.

  “So do you, Syn; somewhere. I can't imagine they hid you for spite. The Guild doesn't allow Fae to hide their own within the ranks unless someone pretty fucking important had asked them to. Even then, it would have had to have been something that involved the Guild for them to have lifted a single finger to help.”

  “Or, someone took me and lied to the Guild. It's the Fae, Adam. They are notorious for lying and fucking each other over. They get off on it. They don’t trust one another, and war is always looming on the horizon for them. Eventually, it will bleed over into this world, and then God have mercy on us because the Fae won't.”

  We sat for what seemed like hours, talking to ease the unease. The mansion shook several more times before anyone came down to the room, and, when they did, it wasn't with good news. Zahruk stood in the doorway covered in blood, his face nicked in several places from fighting.

  “Get ready to move. We have injured men. We are heading to Faery to be safe.” He glared at me before sealing up the entrance to the shelter behind him, as if we’d escape if the seal was down.

  My heart hit the floor. What the hell had I done? How could I have been so stupid to tap the line, even if I hadn’t meant to? This was my fault. If I hadn’t been so tired, or denying the hunger I felt, this wouldn’t have had happened at all. I felt hot tears as they dropped from my eyes to run down my face. Tears of shame that I’d been so childish to plac
e others in danger over my own stubborn pride.

  “They’ll be fine, Syn. They are immortal,” Adam tried to reassure me.

  My heart had sunk in my chest, and for a few moments I wasn't sure it was even beating. I felt sick to my stomach and almost numb with disbelief. This couldn't be happening. What the hell had I been thinking to tap a line? I felt tears falling down my cheeks, even as Adam kissed them away.

  Ristan came to the door and weaved his hands before he stepped through, and looked right at me with the most sober face I'd ever seen on him. “We need to go to Faery. It's the only place with the medical supplies to heal the men.”

  “Ristan, get the boy. Syn…you get to be my Pet, for now,” Zahruk said with a wicked tilt to his mouth.

  “Who is injured?” I asked, and felt hot tears pushing with the need to be released.

  “It’s nothing you need to concern yourself with, Synthia. Right now we just need to get to where it’s safe, so we can take in the extent of the damage, and evaluate the information we gained about these assholes.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  We sifted from the shelter into a room that was dark and swallowed in shadows. The room was elegant, even in the cover of darkness. I could see a medium sized bed pressed up against the wall, as usual. Blue silk sheets that looking inviting and soothing, adorned it. I could smell Ryder’s masculine scent, and watched as Zahruk stood awaiting orders. I was wary about being alone with Ryder, since I’d caused his men injury that could have easily been avoided had it not been for stubborn pride.

  “Leave us, Zahruk,” Ryder said from across the room.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered into the shadows, knowing he would hear it.

  “Come here, Synthia,” he replied without emotion, which sent butterflies to my stomach as chills began to race down my spine.