by Skye Horn
A chill crawled up Thea’s spine.
“Yes, but someone needs to find Kieran and tell him what is going on before she gets into his head next…” Thea looked at Haven and Declan. Part of Thea feared that Kieran might claim the Goddess had forced him to say he was still in love with her, or that nothing they’d felt had ever been real, but she refused to let that insecurity erode her confidence.
“That had better be me,” Haven said, jumping up from the bed. “Your face looks dreadful enough as it is.”
Her comment made Declan flush, but he didn’t disagree as she headed for the door.
“Bring him back here. He’s not going to be happy about this.” Thea sighed before turning her attention back to Amara.
“All right, little sister. Take me to the dark side.”
Kieran felt as if he’d been soaring through the skies for hours but knew that wasn’t the case. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t shake the emotions that unsettled him. He’d confessed his love to Thea only to walk away from her, once again telling her to spend her life with someone else. Even if the conversation had gone better this time, it left him wanting to punch someone—specifically, Declan.
She’d kissed Declan already, and Kieran could do nothing but replay the image of the two of them in a tight embrace in his mind. He’d known that one day Thea would have to move on, but the reality of it was more difficult to deal with than he’d expected. It made his insides boil to think Declan could kiss her without consequence.
He’d lied earlier when he’d said he had business to attend. He just couldn’t handle being around her right now—not knowing what he knew. Someday, Thea would move on, whether or not she meant to. She’d grow to love Declan. It might not be in the same way that she loved him, but love would heal the wounds he’d caused her. And that thought, above all else, was what hurt the most.
So he soared higher into the sky, trying to escape the cage of emotions that threatened to capture him. Still, he tasted the sweetness of her lips on his and smelled her light scent of lavender every time he shut his eyes. If that had been their last kiss, which he told himself it would be, he wanted to remember those things for as long as possible. Kieran knew there was no escape for him. Morrigan had claimed he was being punished, and she wasn’t wrong. This life he was being forced to live apart from Thea—watching her grow to love another—that would be the death of him.
If not physically, then emotionally.
He wished he could end the suffering now, but as he’d told Thea, they had a kingdom to protect and no matter how badly his life sucked, he had people in it he would not give up on.
“Kieran!” a voice startled him out of his thoughts, causing him to spin within the air to face the female Fae who flew toward him.
Despite Kieran’s initial jealousy and distrust of Haven, she’d proven herself loyal to Thea, from everything he had seen. She’d also apparently saved Thea’s life. So he tried not to cringe as she approached his solitary space of sky.
Especially when he saw the look on her face.
“What is it? Is Thea okay?” Kieran asked, changing his flight pattern to head back toward the castle.
Part of him knew that if Thea was really in trouble, he would sense it. After all, when Morrigan had gone after her before, hadn’t he known? But his instinct was to turn toward whatever was happening before needing to be told.
“She is fine,” Haven said, adjusting herself to fly beside him. She was laden with weapons, just as he was, but she did not appear weighed down by them. Instead, she soared alongside him, eyeing him from the corner of her eye as she spoke. “There is something you need to know, though, and I don’t really think I’m the one who should tell you.”
“What? Then why did you come to get me?” Kieran asked in confusion.
“Because Thea is busy and sent me to bring you back to Declan’s room.”
Although Haven had said the words casually, Kieran’s wings faltered, making him fall a few feet lower as he swallowed back a curse. Thea was in Declan’s bedroom and had been too busy… in Declan’s bedroom… to come and tell him important information? He swallowed back the urge to puke into the empty air, knowing it would make for a disgusting mess if he did, but he had no control over the way the wind picked up around them. Haven’s wings strained against the unnatural gusts, but she stayed airborne with him.
“Calm down,” she screamed over the wind, glaring at him. “Amara is there too, you jealous idiot!”
Kieran’s breath caught and the wind died as he stared at Haven in disbelief.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” he growled. “Why would you not start with that?”
“I don’t know, maybe because I thought you were sane,” she spat back, falling into formation beside him. She looked like she wanted to punch him. He was having similar feelings toward her as his anger diffused and emotions settled.
She was right about one thing; he wasn’t acting sane at all. He’d hardly let her say a word before reacting. It seemed like his control was getting worse the more he thought about Thea and Declan together. He wanted to fly away from them, but he couldn’t—not if Thea needed him.
“Just tell me what is going on,” Kieran said, staying true to his course toward the castle.
“Thea thinks Ainé is trying to take control of her soul,” Haven called out, once again nearly making him fall out of the sky.
“She what?” Kieran asked in shock. The words made no sense.
“I think she needs to be the one to explain it to you, but basically, Thea thinks Ainé lied to her.”
Morrigan’s words floated through Kieran’s head as soon as Haven spoke.
Think about everything you’ve been told and ask yourself what truth might unfold beneath the lies.
Whatever Thea thought Ainé was lying about, Kieran wanted to know more than ever. However, he had no idea what proof she had to support her accusation or why she’d think the Goddess was lying to her to begin with.
“Wait,” he said, eyeing Haven. He knew he was missing a lot of information, but something about the way she’d said Amara was there with them made him nervous. “What is Amara doing with Thea, exactly?”
He saw the frown forming on Haven’s lips and felt his heartbeat quicken inside his chest at whatever she hadn’t told him yet.
“They’re trying to contact the Goddess of Death.”
And then Kieran dove from the clouds, hoping to reach Thea and his cousin before it was too late.
Chapter 21
By the time Haven and Kieran returned, Thea’s hair had stuck to her neck with sweat. Amara had been trying to get her to conjure the darkness for nearly an hour, but all she’d done was command a few wispy shadows into lashing out at the now-ruined satin sheets of Declan’s bed.
Amara, who seemed frustrated over the fact that she couldn’t just show Thea how to use dark magic, was putting out a fire with Declan’s pillow when the door to the bedroom opened and two gazes of puzzled horror met them.
Declan was shaking Thea by the shoulders, trying to regain her attention as her vision blurred beneath the stress of the magic; Amara was swatting at the flames on the bed, cursing; and Thea just wanted to curl into the fetal position and give up.
“What the hell…” Kieran’s voice was like a magnet for Thea’s gaze as the door slammed shut. Declan glared at Kieran as he backed away from Thea, but Kieran focused only on her. His eyes grew wide as he took in her disheveled appearance. She gave him a weak smile that tried to convey the facade of being okay but probably looked more pathetic than convincing if she was being honest with herself.
Thea felt exhausted from the failed attempts at conjuring dark magic, but not only that, she felt disappointed in herself. Thea had imagined the magic would be simple, because it had been the last time she’d done it. However, nothing about this past hour had been easy. She’d spent half of the time arguing with Amara about why she couldn’t demonstrate the magic. Thea didn’t want Amara slippin
g back into her old habits, nor did she want anyone else risking their souls for this mission. It had to be her.
“Satin? Really?” Kieran asked Declan, eyeing the burnt bedsheets with a raised eyebrow. Declan glared, refusing to dignify Kieran with a response.
“Kieran,” Thea whispered, regaining his attention.
He knelt in front of her, seeming to forget that they’d been fighting, and stroked the sweat-soaked hair away from her face. She wanted to scream at him for being so confusing, but too much of her longed for his gentle touch. That longing overruled the furious ex-girlfriend who fumed within.
“I don’t know what I’m doing wrong,” Amara said, putting the fire out. She tossed the useless pillow at Declan and crossed her arms over her chest. “This is exactly how Father taught me, but she just isn’t able to tap into it.”
“She’s not a child,” Kieran told Amara, but didn’t look away from Thea. “I had the same issue when I was teaching her how to use elemental magic.”
“So, how did you teach her then?” Haven asked, hopping up to sit on Declan’s desk as he whisked away the stack of journals just before she could knock them over with her wings.
“He pissed me off,” Thea replied before Kieran could, glancing up to meet his gaze again. The memory of the time they spent training by Lake Wysteria brought a hollow ache to her chest. It felt like a lifetime ago that they’d sparred in the moonlight, he trying to teach her to “use her senses” while she yelled at him to stop repeating himself. She’d been so angry at the way he’d made her feel that night, and yet, it had completely changed their relationship.
“That is an understatement,” he murmured, and Thea wondered if he was getting lost in the memory too.
For a moment, everyone else in the room faded away, but Thea couldn’t help wondering how much of their relationship had been influenced by Ainé. One thing was clear: Ainé had chosen Kieran as her soulmate for a reason, a reason that had been gnawing at her insides since the moment they’d stopped trusting the Goddess. How could she not wonder if all of their feelings and actions had been part of this game the Goddesses were playing with them? She recalled Declan’s theory that soulmates were more toxic than good and couldn’t argue it at this point. Thoughts of Kieran had distorted every decision Thea had made since her arrival in Faerie, and although she didn’t regret those decisions, she wondered what control she actually had over them.
“Did you fill him in?” Thea asked Haven, quietly pulling her eyes away from Kieran.
“Partly,” she replied.
“She told me you think Ainé is lying to you,” Kieran clarified. “And that you and Amara were stupidly trying to contact Morrigan.”
Thea ignored his jab. “Think about it, Kieran. Ainé told our mothers I was the key to Morrigan being released from her prison, right? Well, guess what? I released her anyway.”
“But that was our fault. I brought you back to Faerie.”
“Because she gave us a soul bond.” The truth hid itself delicately beneath the surface, but Thea needed to say it. She needed to stop fearing what this all meant and tell him her deepest fears were coming to life, because he needed to hear this as much as she did. “Everything any of you have told me about soulmates says that it is impossible for them to live without each other—Impossible.”
Now, Thea turned her attention to Declan, looking between him and Kieran.
“Declan, your mother died because your father was killed. Kieran, your father took on a suicide mission because of what happened to your mother. Iris says that she would have died when they murdered Cora, but she focused on revenge instead.
“Just the other night Declan was telling me that there are even legends that Morrigan cursed one of her descendants—the original King of Blackmire, all because of his undying love for his soulmate—so that dark magic would run through his veins until a soul bond was broken. That is how serious these bonds are. Morrigan used it as a punishment because she knew the severity. And yet, Ainé made us soulmates when she knew we couldn’t be together?
“That doesn’t sound like a mistake to me. It sounds like a well-thought-out decision.”
Thea looked around as if someone might tell her she was wrong, but she knew she wasn’t. She’d been working all this out in her head, and it terrified her, because if it was true, then she and Kieran really were just pawns in a game.
Kieran’s face had gone ghostly pale, but he was looking at Declan instead of her. Thea wondered why, but she continued her speech when it was clear he would not say anything yet.
“There’s no such thing as coincidence in magic, Kieran. Ainé gave your mother the vision because our mothers knew we were soulmates from the start. You said it yourself; we were inseparable as children and the thought of being away from me all of those years tormented you. I always knew something was missing in my life. I just didn’t know what it was until I found you…
“Ainé knew our mothers would use you to take me out of Faerie, and she knew that because we were soulmates, we’d find our way back to each other.”
Thea’s eyes stung with tears, but she didn’t care. She hated that she believed any of this was true, but how could it not be? If Ainé knew they were soulmates, then she would have known Thea and Kieran couldn’t stay away from one another. It was fated.
They were fated.
Everyone else in the room had gone still as they watched the scene between Thea and Kieran unfold. The truth was not only unsettling, it changed everything.
“Why, though… why would she send you away just to bring you back again? Why go through all the trouble of getting us to fall in love? Morrigan is out of her prison, just like the prophecy said, so what was the point of it all?” There was anger beneath Kieran’s shaky voice, but the answers were clicking together for Thea now, one by one. They hadn’t just been fated to fall in love for some Goddess-forsaken reason, but their mothers had also died for that reason. That weight was unlike any Thea had ever carried.
“If they hadn’t sent me away, my father would have raised me…”
“And you would have been exactly like me,” Amara gasped, drawing both Thea and Kieran’s attention toward her. “Morrigan would have had her hold in you from the start, but by sending you away, you had no idea about magic—dark or light—and Ainé would have had a much easier time controlling you that way.”
“Which is why she gave me access to all four elements,” Thea explained, looking around at each of them. “Like you said, there has been no one with abilities like mine before. That’s because it makes me unstable. It gives Ainé a chance at my soul, the same way dark magic grants Morrigan access.”
“But why?” Kieran asked, his tone growing angrier, more desperate.
“I don’t know, but I intend to find out. There is no way I’m walking into another trap. If Ainé has plans for me, then I want to know exactly what they are before I head into that prison world.” Thea sat straight again, leveling her eyes with Kieran’s.
Tears spilled across her cheeks, but she no longer felt embarrassed by the show of emotion. She wasn’t crying because Kieran had left her. Nor was she crying because of guilt over a simple kiss. Anger fueled her tears at the puppet master pulling the strings in all of their lives. Kieran reached up to brush away the trickles of liquid.
“So, the plan is to ask Morrigan what Ainé is planning?” Kieran asked, glancing around the room at all three sets of uncomfortable gazes. “Why do you think she’s going to tell us?”
“Morrigan warned me I had been lied to. She told me I would find her when I was ready for the truth—well, I’m ready now,” Thea murmured.
“Plus, do you have a better plan?” Amara added. “If Ainé can get into Declan’s head then she could get into any of our heads. We need to be a step ahead of her.”
“Wait, what do you mean if she can get into Declan’s head?” Kieran looked over at Declan. He was standing in front of him with a low growl before Thea could even move to stop him. “What are t
hey talking about?”
“Down, boy.” Haven threw a hand out between Declan and Kieran’s bodies just as Thea stood.
“What are you going to do? Punch me again?” Declan asked, glaring at Kieran.
“The thought has crossed my mind,” Kieran murmured, a dangerous smirk spreading across his lips. “Especially after what Thea told me.”
“Enough,” Thea said from behind Kieran. She could see the anger on Declan’s face over Kieran’s tensed wings.
“You told him?” Declan asked, lifting an eyebrow at Thea.
“Right before she kissed me,” Kieran responded as if he’d been dying to drop that bomb since he’d walked into the room.
“Really mature.” Thea’s hands clenched into fists as she spoke.
“You kissed him?” Declan looked surprised, and her face burned. No one in this room needed to know whom she was kissing, and yet, everyone suddenly did. Kieran shook with as much anger as Thea. Whatever pissed-off mood he’d been in earlier about Thea’s kiss with Declan was returning.
“Stop it,” Amara snapped, moving over to push Kieran away from Declan. “All of you, stop it. She’s losing control!”
Amara’s eyes darted to meet Thea’s. To her surprise, her hands were no longer just clenched into fists. They were glowing bright blue and trembling up to her elbows. She felt the heat beneath her skin, the power bubbling up. If she lost control now, Ainé could get into her head again, and they’d never have a chance for this plan to succeed.
Haven jumped away from the boys, running over to Thea.
“Shit,” she said as she jerked her hands away from where she’d just grabbed Thea’s. “You burned me!”
“I’m sorry…” Thea whimpered, trying to focus on making the magic cease, but thoughts of kissing both Kieran and Declan were tormenting her mind. Guilt returned as she saw the look of hurt flash across Declan’s face. Anger boiled as she watched Kieran brag about a kiss that Thea possibly had no control over. What was even real anymore? Ainé had forced Declan to kiss Thea, and she’d tied Kieran and Thea together by some twisted fate. How could she trust any of her own emotions or feelings for either of them? “Please, make it stop.”