Taunting Destiny

by Amelia Hutchins

  “And when they are all gathered and placed together again, what will they do?” I wasn’t an idiot, and I’d heard stories of those ancient relics as part of the Guild teachings. Alarms went off in my head. The idea of Ryder wanting the relics had Han Solo whispering in my ear, ‘I got a bad feeling about this!’

  “It is nothing bad for any human or Fae. That’s all you need to know for now, Pet,” he said, leaving what the relics would do a mystery.

  He dismissed me, so I did the same to him and watched as his men circled around us. There was a slight breeze blowing, which told me we were not as far up as I had originally thought. The night’s sky was filled with beautiful stars, and a half moon. I felt Ryder’s eyes on me, so I turned toward him. He smiled back and lifted his hand to touch my cheek before he gave off orders to his men rapidly and efficiently, in a voice I could only describe as a stage whisper.

  “Z, Savlian, and Aodhan, you're on point. Ristan, any hiccups you have seen?” Ryder asked.

  Ristan narrowed his eyes on me and shook his head. “None,” he replied slowly. I narrowed my eyes on him and grinned. Even though he knew my skills, he was probably thinking I would be a problem, and I wouldn’t be. I was in my element here. Well, I was, unless it was another set up.

  The men all got down low, so I followed their lead. We moved forward with everyone crouched low until they rounded a large, dark, square sunroof. Ryder placed his hand on the glass and whispered something in that strange language that I had heard him use a couple of times now, which made the glass vanish. I blinked and tilted my head a little. Ristan smiled at me as he took in my look of surprise. They were all talking in hushed tones, and I caught the word “warded,” and smiled.

  “No, it's completely warded. It was only supposed to be pressure sensors. Fuck! They have it warded against Fae. You try and go down there, and we will have every guard in the building on our asses in a heartbeat,” Ristan said to Ryder, who shrugged as if he couldn’t care less.

  “We need that fucking scepter, period. We can't see whatever bullshit magic they are using without it. No matter which way you look at it, Ristan, we need that scepter to finish what we came to this world to do. If we don’t get it now, they will try to move it. We can’t take the chance of losing them again,” Ryder argued.

  I listened with one ear to the two of them whispering at each other. Knowing they had a mental link, they must have been hissing out loud for the rest of us in the hope that someone might have a constructive idea for this clusterfuck. No plan ‘B’ my ass. I rolled my eyes and quickly took in the lasers inside the room, gauged the distance to the floor and how hard it would be to get there, and took in the time calculation of how many seconds I’d have before I needed to move from each spot. I started unraveling my belt as I continued to count them, and stopped only to look around for the heaviest thing on the roof to secure it to. I smiled as they continued to argue in heated whispers over how they would get in.

  They were still arguing when I started from a dead run, and flew through the air, over Savlian who had come back to see what the issue was, and had just leaned over to look at the problem.

  “Synthia!” Ryder let out a strangled curse as I hooked my leg in midair, and looped it through the thin rope that had been hidden inside my belt. I looked up at the shocked faces of the fourteen men, and smiled. Ryder wasn't smiling; he had an alarmed look on his face, until I flipped and landed on my feet perfectly between three lasers. I wouldn’t set the wards off because the sensors would not recognize me as Fae. Or, at least, that’s what I hoped after Alden’s revelation about me being some sort of Druid Fae; that it would make me different enough and get me in undetected.

  “That was fucking hot as hell,” Sevrin said with a small grin. He looked up to catch the glare Ryder had leveled on him. “What? It was!”

  “If you guys are done, I need you to point out which scepter you want, since they have twelve down here,” I whispered as I looked up into angry golden eyes. Twelve glass display cases, mounted to solid wooden pedestals, were interspersed throughout the room, and each held what looked like an eighteen-inch long oak branch displayed in each case. Based on the plans, I had expected the room to be like a storage room and, instead, it looked more like a museum.

  “Second case to your left, Syn. Be careful, it's connected to an alarm wire.” Ryder exhaled slowly and shook his head as his eyes warned that my ass would be pink after this little escapade.

  I looked across the dark room and counted the cases with my fingers in the dark room. I didn't move, though. I'd studied the room and had a feeling about what was coming, unlike Ryder, who almost called out as I went flat against the floor from a full standing position, as glowing red laser shot out of the wall and ran a waist level scan of the room.

  “Close,” Zahruk whispered.

  “Synthia, are you okay?” Ristan asked.

  I didn't answer, as yet another laser beeped and shot through the room. This one was lower than the first, and it searched more of the room as a whole. Shit. Another laser shot out, even lower, until it touched the lasers I now laid beside. I waited for it to finish scanning before I carefully looped my leg back through the rope. Another laser shot out, lower again. I waited. Another, lower again. Still waiting. The next one would give me away.

  I jumped, and twisted my body up through the rope rapidly as a laser blinked to life on the spot where I had just been, then slowly faded out as it found no threat. “Three minutes. They run a scan of the room every three minutes,” I whispered, hitting the ground again and moving through the ones on the floor while I made my way to the display case. I was almost there, when a door opened and closed across the room. I crouched low and backed up against a display case.

  “Room five is empty. Doing a reboot of the system now, over,” a voice said into the room as the lasers turned off. The sound of heavy work shoes hitting across the marble floor started, moving closer to where I was hiding. I listened to his footsteps, counting them as I rounded the display case the moment he would have seen me on the other side. I swallowed, holding my dark magic to me to keep the rope, which was moving with me, invisible, while praying that what little magic I was using, didn’t set the wards off.

  When he had walked the room, he turned and took a secondary route back. It caused me to have a small heart attack. I quickly moved around the small display case and looked up to find only a pair of shining golden eyes watching me. I smiled and winked up at him, before I blew him a silent kiss. He shook his head at me, and I could have sworn I heard him growl inside my head.

  “All clear; rebooting system,” the guard said, and I felt my heart drop. Well shit, this was going to suck. I waited until I heard the door open and close before I dared to breathe.

  I couldn't sift, because I'd set off the Fae wards. I peeked around the case and found the guard still punching buttons on the wall panel. On reboot, it was going to run every laser inside the room, at once. I took off at a quick crouched run toward the side wall that had a corner in it. It was the only wall I could get to, that the guard wouldn’t see me. I was lucky this room had been built in an odd shape for the purpose of displaying artifacts. I placed my feet on both sides of the wall so I could hold myself up, and away from the multiple lasers. I managed to jump right as the first ground lasers started up. I didn't breath, I didn’t move. I held Ryder's eyes for support while the system ran at full capacity, before they returned to their original routine.

  I inhaled slowly, so slowly that my lungs didn’t fully inflate, and watched the lasers on the ground before silently placing my feet back on the floor and taking a step forward, and then another. “Which one?” I whispered again since my sense of direction was off. Ryder pointed it out, and I made my way to it. I held my breath as I found and disconnected the red alarm wire to the display case and then crossed the blue to the green to give it a false safe reading. No alarm went off, but I wasn’t stupid.

  I raised the glass display case off the pedestal and l
ooked inside, smiling triumphantly. I found a trip wire that would sound an alarm the moment I picked the scepter up and separated it from its mounting. I whispered a spell to make the glass levitate as I reached in and counted wires. I swore as the lasers started up again, making me scramble to lift my body, with the help of the rope, high enough to miss them. When they'd run their course, I lowered my body and made sure my feet missed the ground-level ones. I inhaled and exhaled slowly, before reaching in and twisting wires until the pressure was enough that I could lift the scepter without tripping the alarm. Once it was free, I shoved it into my belt and slowly returned the glass case to its pedestal.

  I kicked my feet up quickly, and crawled feet first up the rope until Ryder grabbed me and set me down on my feet. “That wasn't the fucking deal,” he whispered heatedly.

  “No, but I could get to your stupid club, caveman, and you couldn’t. So I did. Get over it, Fairy. I came to help you guys, and we got what we came for,” I whispered back as I withdrew the wooden branch, err scepter thingy from my belt.

  “Good, hand it to me,” he said, holding out his hand for it.

  I eyed it uneasily for a moment, noticing it didn’t change as I held it. When I handed it to Ryder, I immediately felt butterflies of unease set in. I saw his eyes flash with anticipation as it changed from a solid branch of oak, into a beautiful, platinum staff that almost stood as tall as he did. A ruby that was bigger than my fist nestled in an elaborate platinum setting on the top of it. His hand wrapped around the staff, caressing it; much like he did my skin when we were alone.

  “Why do I feel like I just handed you something that I shouldn’t have?” I asked.

  His lips lifted into a grin. One that was a little too dark, and a little too deadly for my taste. “Ristan, take Synthia back to the club, please. I’ll meet you there, Pet. I need to secure this where no one will find it.”

  I narrowed my eyes on him, but he sifted out, leaving me standing there angrily staring at the empty patch of the roof where he had just been.

  “Flower,” Ristan said, holding out his hand.

  “Demon,” I replied.

  “Shall we?” He asked as I curled my fingers into my hand.

  “If I say no?” I joked, knowing I didn’t really have a choice.

  “Then I would take you back anyways. I like my women feisty.”

  Chapter Twenty Six

  Adrian was with me today. Ryder had allowed him to come to the club to keep me busy. Ryder noticed the walls closing in around me, as I waited for him to turn up any information on my would-be assassin. Outside of the little field trip last night, I’d been kept inside, and it was driving me insane. I wasn’t as bothered by staying inside as I was by being idle. I wanted to be doing something helpful, and all I was doing inside was sitting and waiting. Waiting sucked. I'd tried not to let it show, but some of it must have, because Ryder had allowed my ex-boyfriend to come in and keep me company while he'd gone out to hunt today.

  “So, how are you adjusting?” Adrian asked from where he sat across the table.

  We'd ended up sitting at one of the many booths on the club’s ground level. The club looked abandoned in the early morning hours, and the only people inside were Ryder’s crew. Mazzy Star’s Fade Into You was playing softly over the club’s music system. “I'm adjusting,” I said as I lifted my eyes and met his vivid turquoise ones. My world used to revolve around those eyes, until he'd left me to think he was dead for years. I was tempted to confront him about his stretching the truth about the night he ‘died’ and the choices he’d made, but I wasn’t really ready to rip that scab open yet.

  “Cute fangs,” he said, smiling as he reached up to move his spiky bangs away from his bronzed skin.

  I grinned impishly. “I'm not going to say the same thing about yours.”

  “Didn't figure you would.” He smiled and licked his fang wickedly with his tongue.

  “You know you’re an ass, right?”

  “Always. You expected it to change?” he asked, raising a brow.

  I smiled softly and shook my head. I was glad he was here, and, yet, I felt uncomfortable under his close scrutiny. It wasn’t the same as it had been before, when we'd been together. “No, I always knew better than to think you’d change.” I grinned, and toyed with the tea bag in the glass mug that sat untouched before me.

  Ryder had ordered the tea before he’d left today. He had been a little overprotective since I had gotten sick back at the house, but I hadn’t had another bout of losing my cookies since that awful morning. I knew already that when I tasted it, it would be perfectly made. He knew exactly how I took my tea, and that worried me a little bit. I hadn’t drunk it around him before, so he shouldn’t have been able to figure out that I liked it with sugar. I brought the mug up, and inhaled the soothing chamomile. The light scent of sugar made my lips quirk up. I tasted it, and a smile broke across my face.

  “Wish it was me who brought that beautiful smile to your lips, Synthia. I'm thinking it wasn’t though,” Adrian said with a soft, comforting smile on his mouth.

  “He ordered my tea, right down to the two teaspoons of sugar,” I said as if he should know how it made me feel, or that I was a little worried that Ryder knew it.

  Adrian gave me a confused stare for a moment, before moving it to the glass mug. “You like tea?”

  A smile tugged on my lips. “And coffee,” I answered.

  “I knew you liked coffee; had no idea you liked tea though,” he replied as something behind me caught his eye. “We got company.”

  I turned, watching as Adam, his dad, and Ryder's men approached us. “Syn, this is my dad. He has a few things to talk to you about,” Adam said with a little more formality than I was used to from him.

  I blinked. I had no idea how to address a King, and Adam's father was just that. He was the freaking Dark King! “Uh,” I faltered. Even dressed like a human in jeans and a button down dark-green shirt, the man had a regal bearing and radiated power like a generator. His height and frame were exactly like Adam’s was now. However, his facial features, like the sky-blue and sapphire-blue two-toned eyes and blue-black hair that was much like Ryder’s, set them apart.

  “Synthia, it's a pleasure to meet you. I have heard nothing but good things about you from my son,” The Dark King said with a patient smile, and ancient eyes that probed my face.

  “I haven't heard much about you at all,” I replied honestly.

  “May I?” The Dark King asked, indicating a chair next to the booth we sat in. I watched him pull it closer, waiting for my answer.

  “Of course,” I replied, not sure which I wanted more at the moment—to run from the Dark King or to hug Adam. I met Adam's gaze and smiled. “You’re okay?”

  “I've been through hell, but I think I’ll be okay. You?”

  “Same, been through worse.”

  He smiled and nodded, before sliding into the booth next to me. Zahruk stood at my right with a guarded look in his eyes, which was doing little to ease the uneasiness I felt with in this group’s presence. Dristan was standing across the club, observing, and I wasn’t stupid. They were here to guard and protect me in Ryder’s absence.

  “There are a few things I would like to discuss with you, if that is permissible?” Dark King asked gently.

  “Okay,” I replied, straightening in my seat.

  “Ryder said that he believes you might be the Light Heir. Do you understand what that would entail?”

  “That I stand to rule the Light Fae, which won't happen.” I was so going to strangle Ryder for going against my wishes. If he reached out to the Light Fae too, there was gonna be some fried Fairy for dinner tonight.

  “You think it would be so easy to just say no?” he countered, folding his massive hands on the table in front of him.

  “No, but the current Queen is healthy, as is her King. I see no reason why I would be forced to claim the crown. They abandoned me. Oh, yeah—I heard the stories when I was in the Guild, that the L
ight Princess was stolen, but I don’t believe it. If I am her, they got rid of me because I'm more than likely illegitimate, since they have quite a few children they kept, and, personally, I'm okay with that.”

  “Your mother has been known to be unfaithful, and her king also has a wild streak.” He nodded as if it was nothing new.

  “The Light Fae are not a faithful caste. They think that they’re above tradition and above any other caste of Fae for that matter. To put it bluntly, they are self-absorbed asshats.”

  He smiled and nodded, before looking past me to Adam. “I see why you like her, my son. She is blunt and doesn't play with words. Straight to the point, and doesn’t beat the bushes.”

  Adam smiled and grabbed my hand softly. I beamed at him and noticed something was missing in his eyes. He was the same Adam I'd grown up with, but he'd lost the innocence he'd had. Maybe we all had after losing Larissa. I prayed that he would be able to come back from this. I missed my wisecracking best friend.